U.S. adventure in Iraq amounts to big con job: Newsday

[jbfam4]

U.S. adventure in Iraq amounts to big con job
Sheryl McCarthy

http://www.newsday.com/news/columnists/ny-vpmcc243816748may24,0,6655986.column?coll=ny-news-columnists
May 24, 2004

It's become clear that every last reason the Bush administration gave for taking us to war with Iraq has turned out to be bogus.

A third reason this administration gave for going to war was to turn the Iraqi government over to the Iraqi people. This meant turning it over to sleazeballs like Ahmad Chalabi, the main guy on whom the Bush administration placed its hopes for rebuilding Iraq. Problem was Chalabi was a known con man at the time the Bush administration reinstalled him in Iraq. So when his home and office were raided last week, why did it come as a surprise to anyone that he was still a crook, might even be a spy, and had squandered millions of American dollars in return for feeding us bad intelligence?

Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) says the Iraq episode could turn out to be "the worst blunder in the entire history of American foreign policy," and I'm ready to agree with him. It's certainly one of the biggest con jobs that's ever been pulled off by any administration, and the Bush administration's loftiest claim - that it's brought democracy and American values to Iraq - no longer rings true.

If it turns out that Rumsfeld gave the go-ahead to the abuses at Abu Ghraib, he should be forced out. And George Bush, who led us into this morass of empty promises, deserves to be turned out of the White House.

[DulceDecorum]

1. And we told you so

time and again.

[Kolesar]

3. yeah, millions of us. Unprecedented contact from constituents said "no"

Now our government is acting stupid, like they did not know. I am so annoyed.

[jpgray]

4. Our public institutions really failed us on this one

The media in particular really outraged me. The SOTU with the false Niger crap had been refuted in Nov. 2002 by the IAEA, who found the documents to be childish forgeries in about an hour of examination. Not to mention the facility was French-owned and all the material was pre-sold to existing reactors--skimming such a quantity off the top and selling it surreptitiously was entirely unrealistic.

When did we hear about this in the mainstream media? Oh, a few months after 'major combat operations' ended. Too bad if you paid attention, you woudl have known for months. :(

[jpgray]

2. The doubts were thoroughly expressed, and summarily repressed

They should have given the CNN logo an erection and each of the anchors pom poms--the behavior of the media was just deplorable.