Why this sudden push to rewrite history about the Iraq war?

[JHB]

36. That's PARTLY true, but not enough to have made it happen...

The deceptions were how they pushed -- hard -- to deceive and/or strong-arm fence-sitters and those giving him the benefit of the doubt into going along.

Do you recall the intricate interweaving of "Saddam" and "911" in every speech....while carefully never outright claiming that Saddam had a hand in 911 (that part was left to pundits and others outside the (mal)administration, who could be relied upon to do so).

Then there was the Incredible Shrinking Force Level, where the Bushies' claim of the size of the military force needed was magically far lower than then then-current estimates of what would be needed to occupy a country the size of Iraq (as in half to a third of what would have been needed). But a full sized force didn't mesh with the selling point of something that would be done quickly and cheaply ("a cakewalk&quot . A larger commitment would have had more resistance and forced a lot of people (especially in congress) to not simply take the Bushies' word on it.

On point after point they pushed, pulled, leveraged, and catapulted in order to bridge the gap between what they could do unilaterally and what they needed others to go along with.