War and Decision, Doug Feith

This 528 page tome, chocked full of quotes, references and end notes is the book that the left and the MSM would prefer to ban. It ought not be hard to achieve that goal, it is a HARD read, it is detailed, dry, and generally devoid of passion. It is the kind of book that a lifetime bureaucrat would write, and indeed, that is what Feith is.

After 30 years in a major US corporation, my guess is that this book is far more "truth" than anything else written about the War On Terror (WOT) and especially the decision to go to war in Iraq. Why do I think that? Well other than the fact that this one includes copious references and quotes that can be verified, it sounds exactly like big organizations run. Personalities, egos, infighting, CYA (cover your ass), spin, avoidance of responsibility, taking credit where no credit is due, and assigning blame to others. It very much sounds like how a big honkin beauracracy operates.

The core messages are very clear:

• There was an explicit decision made that the only way to avoid futher attacks on the US without turning the country into an armed camp was to go on offense and fight the terrorists around the world on foreign soil.
  
• The downside risk of something coming out of Iraq and killing some number of US citizens was simply too high to ignore. EVERYONE -- for over a decade, Democrat or Republican had identified Saddam has a huge threat -- to oil, to Israel and to the US using WMD or passing it to terrorists. Allowing Saddam to stay in power post 9-11 was simply too big a risk. If that was done and something DID happen, nobody would ever forgive the Bush administration -- and they would be right. It was unconscionable that Saddam would be allowed to stay given the post-9-11 world.
  
• CIA and State could never get on the same page with Defense and generally Bush, BUT, rather than either "win the position", or resign if it was decided that the position taken was something they could not support, both Powel and Tenent were classic "play it all ways" beauracrats and kept fighting -- in the press, by ignoring policy and other ways that caused huge problems in the Iraq effort.
  
• Richard Armitage (who was the "leak" of Plames name) at state and Scooter Libby (who ended up charged for perjury because he got some dates wrong) were constantly at war about Iraq policy -- very interesting, considering that Armitage kicked off the whole affair, but was (and mostly still is) one of the darlings of the MSM because he was good for quotes from State on how bad the Bush admin was doing. Of course, he was PART of that administration. Bush absolutely needed to fire more people, he was WAY too "loyal" (or maybe just disliked conflict?)
  
• The biggest actual issue of the war may have been the use of Iraqi exiles vs Iraqis that had stayed in country post '91. Defense wanted the exiles including Chalibi to be installed in an interim government IMMEDIATELY, and they wanted trained exile military folks on the ground immediately.
  
  State and CIA were way against Chalibi and the exiles -- which is the opposite of what we did in Afghanistan. A huge amount of the book is about making the case that State and the CIA were wrong and that was proven by the eventual government voted in, and the conflict over the exiles was what resulted in the disasterous long occupation. A good case is made, I'm not close enough to it and don't know enough of the other side view to make a final determination, but I find it to be a very interesting line of inquiry.

I could go on, but I think those are the big points -- oh, and he was pretty hard on Bremer relative to the long occupation, going too slow on giving control to Iraqis. This is the kind of thing from which historians need to sift rather than the "Bush lied, people died" sort of "deep analysis". Unfortunately, we will likely get to find out if "going on offense" is what has worked to keep us safe.