More crap from the Washington Post. Kate Graham must be doing somersaults in her grave this morning.
Whether This War Was Worth It:
...The most sensible argument for the invasion was not that Hussein was about to strike the United States or anyone else with a nuclear bomb. It was that containment could not be preserved indefinitely...
As Will Smith said, as Agent J in "Men in Black" (and you have to do it in Will's voice for the full effect):
"Dayum." ...
(...more after the jump)
The guy who authored this extremely long WaPo-sponsored revision of history, Robert Kagan, is bylined as a "senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace". While the nuclear argument may not have been the most sensible, truthful, or honest one, Mr. Kagan conveniently forgets that this is
exactly the frantic, arm-waving, house-is-on-fire argument that the Bush administration made to convince the American public that this war was (in Mr. Kagan's words) worth it:
"The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Saddam Hussein has held numerous meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists, a group he calls his 'nuclear mujahideen' -- his nuclear holy warriors. Satellite photographs reveal that Iraq is rebuilding facilities at sites that have been part of its nuclear program in the past.
"...Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof -- the smoking gun -- that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud."
George W. Bush, Oct. 7, 2002
And then these gems (among others):
"This is about imminent threat." -- White House spokesman Scott McClellan, 2/10/03
"Absolutely." -- White House spokesman Ari Fleischer answering whether Iraq was an "imminent threat," 5/7/03
I've said it before to others and I'll say it again to Mr. Kagan - it's a little too early to be revising history. While the post facto justifying he's doing now may have, in fact, been the true case for war, it simply wasn't the pretext presented to the world by the full administration of George W. Bush.
Update, 3:15 EDT - I'm even MORE livid at the WaPo right now. Via a comment at Crooks and Liars, we find that Robert Kagan is not only a "senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace", he's also a founding director of the Project for a New American Century.
Of course, WaPo didn't bother to provide that little factoid in the byline...
Cross posted at All Spin Zone