misleader

Important report from the Times putting together in coherent form the Bush teams knowing reliance on weak intel. If you maintain the dream that Bush was forthcoming in the lead up to was in Iraq, read this, and attempt, for a fleeting moment, to understand the frustration of those who have kicked and screamed about this issue.

The fact, in our minds, is this: With regard to going to war in Iraq, Bush intentionally sold the immediacy of Hussein's threat. Clinton had the policy, and Kerry approved, that Hussein needed to be removed from power. Bush sold us on the idea that the threat was not simply real, but immediate...remember Dr. Rice threatening the mushroom cloud smoking gun? I believe Bush was not convinced of this immediate threat. I believe he wanted to get on with the war (perhaps strategy, perhaps because he knew the American population wouldn't buy the neo-con idea of reforming the mid-east). If Bush had believed the threat was imminent, he would not have shushed the nuclear experts that said the alluminum tubes were not for nuclear weapons. But he hushed them. Read the article.

For this reason, I simply don't trust Bush. I don't think he's evil, but I don't trust him. I already didn't like his policies. I feared, a'la Diulio, that he put politics before policy. But trust, that basic belief that he gave us, basically, a fair telling of the way things were, has eroded to a small dirt pile after these four years.