A tale of incompetence and irresponsibility

By Michael J.W. Stickings

He was warned, but he went ahead anyway, misleading the American people, misleading the world, and leading his country into a disaster of his own making. Now we know:

Two months before the invasion of Iraq, U.S. intelligence agencies twice warned the Bush administration that establishing a democracy there would prove difficult and that Al Qaeda would use political instability to increase its operations, according to a Senate report released Friday.

The report, issued by the Senate Intelligence Committee, brought to light once-classified warnings that accurately forecasted many of the military and political problems the Bush administration and Iraqi officials have faced since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003.

These warnings were distributed to senior officials with daily access to President Bush and others at the very top of the administration, the report states.

No surprise here, nothing new.

Bush and the warmongers weren't about to let such warnings -- or the facts -- get in the way of what they all wanted, of what they all had wanted for so long. The annals of warfare are filled with examples of incompetence and irresponsibility. But Bush's misadventure in Iraq surely takes its place alongside the great military blunders of history.

Senator Rockefeller: "[T]he intelligence community gave the administration plenty of warning about the difficulties we would face if the decision was made to go to war... These dire warnings were widely distributed at the highest levels of government, and it's clear that the administration didn't plan for any of them."

For his part, Bush blew off the report. But of course. He remains delusionally self-righteous. And he is certainly not about to admit to failure.

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Update: Why is this report only coming out now? Why did it not come out, say, before the '04 election? See Steve Benen at TPM for the history (although it's still not clear why now, before the long weekend).