Personally, I've always thought of Bush's UN speech of 12 Sep 2002 as pretty much the raison d'etre (Latin: the reason for the existence of) speech of the Iraq War, the date when the Bush Administration's course was firmly set and Bush made it clear that he would have his war no matter what. And of course, the Bush biographer quoted in an archived Downing St Memo screenshot shows that Bush wanted to be seen as a "Commander-in-Chief" which of course could be accomplished by starting a war with Iraq.
The really amazing part of Feith's book-to-be is Feith's apparent faith in Ahmad Chalabi, the guy who was described by the young Iraqi woman blogger Riverbend as:
.
..not just a puppet- he's a mercenary. He encouraged the sanctions that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and maimed the country itself. He supported the war and occupation vehemently and fabricated lies about weapons and threats to further his cause. He's a criminal- and a lousy one at that.
Chalabi's return to Iraq was hardly a "Napoleon-returning-from-Elba" kind of return. The NY Times points out that:
When the [December 2005] election came, Chalabi was wiped out. His Iraqi National Congress received slightly more than 30,000 votes, only one-quarter of 1 percent of the 12 million votes cast — not enough to put even one of them, not even Chalabi, in the new Iraqi Parliament.
And yet, this is the guy that Feith apparently thinks was the savior of Iraq:
Others have criticized Feith's plan as relying too heavily on Iraqi exile politicians, including Ahmed Chalabi. Feith says that he considered Chalabi one of the most astute and democratically minded Iraqis but that he had no special brief for him. Instead, he charges that the State Department, the CIA and the military's Central Command were pathologically opposed to the exiles and to Chalabi in particular.
But what exactly was Feith's idea for running Iraq after the invasion?
The idea to which Feith appears most attached, and to which he repeatedly returns in the book, is the formation of an Iraqi Interim Authority. Feith's office drew up a plan for the body -- to be made up of U.S.-appointed Iraqis who would share some decision-making with U.S. occupation forces -- in the months before the invasion. [emphasis added]
Gee, I wonder which "U.S.-appointed Iraqis" Feith could have in mind? What's probably the most amusing statement in the review is: "...secret information was not necessary to understand the threat Hussein posed."
Erm, actually, it was. Saddam Hussein, no matter how evil, no matter how bloodthirsty, may be an awful fellow that people wish to dispose of, but to be considered a threat requires showing, through evidence, that his country could militarily threaten the US and/or it's close allies. That proof "had to" be manufactured because there was simply no proof to be had.
And oh, yes! It seems that "Saint John The Maverick" McCain was a strong supporter of...wait for it...Chalabi!
