I know the current administration prefers to “look forward”, but the memoir of former Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Hugh Shelton III has been published and he has a few words to say about how the U.S. went to war with Iraq. To coin a phrase: Bush lied. According to Thomas Ricks at Foreign Policy, this is what Shelton wrote:
Shelton also writes that there was no reason to go war against Iraq. “The fact is that we had Iraq contained and they were not a threat.” (419) Also, “There was absolutely no link between him [Saddam] and 9/11.” (474) …
His bottom line: “President Bush and his team got us enmeshed in Iraq based on extraordinarily poor intelligence and a series of lies purporting that we had to protect American from Saddam’s evil empire because it posed such a threat to our national security.” (474-475)
Just in case you weren’t paying attention, he elaborates on that charge later in the book. “Spinning the possible possession of WMDs as a threat to the United States in the way they did is, in my opinion, tantamount to intentionally deceiving the American people.” (488)
I just thought I’d share this, in case someone in our “forward looking” Department of Justice is still was ever examining the evidence. Oh and Gen. Shelton, it would have been really nice if you would have written this in 2003 or 2004. Ya know, spoken out before the bastards were in the clear.