So, if the source of the intel is in question here, why all the yammering at Bush and other Republican lawmakers? Why hasn't the same vitrolic been turned towards a large number of the Democratic party as well, since the bulk of them in the House and Senate supported the invasion?
Were GWB and Cheney working for the CIA during the mid 90's? Did they cut budgets, reallocate HumInt (actually, slash the Hell out of it), rely on ISI (Pakistani) intel far too much, ignore Afghanistan and the rise of the Taliban for the most part, condone "toothless" resolutions in the UN on Iraq, etc.? Or was it others before them that laid the groundwork?
For those that blame Bush, Sr. on Bin Laden's aggression towards the US by putting troops in Saudi Arabia, did you NOT get the memo that Bin Laden has publicly stated that his design for 9/11 and attacks on the US began back when Israel invaded Lebanon in '82, where Israel had US backing on that particular excercise?
That's only about a decade difference between when we rolled tanks into Saudi. What say you now?
The events that led up to 9/11 and the intel snafu that Iraq has become is perhaps the biggest publicly-known screwup that the CIA and other intelligence agencies have suffered; it's been a complete watershed moment for the clandestine services community though it's being completely missed by many here in order to further push their bumper-sticker politics and mentalities. Yes, all of this happened on Bush's watch, but I certainly didn't hear the Left shouting much of anything different during the months leading up to the invasion.
Everybody got it wrong on Iraq and it was due to the quality and veracity of the intelligence we had on-hand.
This ENTIRE debacle can happen again and it could have just as easily happened with a Democrat in office; presidential decisions are ONLY as good at the intel provided. Why is this so bloody hard to understand? Do you think Gore or Kerry would have told Tenet to "f**k off" when he said that the case for WMD was a "slam-dunk"? Please count the number of executives that have sat in the Oval Office that have blatanly ignored their DCI and the proclomations put forth by the CIA on issues of grave importance...
To parallel: is it Kennedy's fault that the CIA inflated their estimates on the aggrivation that Cuba's population had towards Castro in order to push the Bay of Pigs coup? Yes, it happened on his watch and as much as I consider him a mediocre leader, I don't lay blame on the Bay of Pigs at his feet; Richard Bissell wears that badge...
The events that led up to the invasion are NOT a failure in executive leadership; they are a failure in intelligence. The post-war environment in Iraq is a bit of both, though.
