Amazing piece, Rick.
This bears repeating:
"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction," Cheney said.
"There is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us."
Cheney's certitude bewildered Zinni. As chief of the Central Command, Zinni had been immersed in U.S.
intelligence about Iraq. He was all too familiar with the intelligence analysts' doubts about Iraq's programs to
acquire weapons of mass destruction, or WMD. "In my time at Centcom, I watched the intelligence, and never --
not once -- did it say, 'He has WMD.' "
Though retired for nearly two years, Zinni says, he remained current on the intelligence through his consulting
with the CIA and the military. "I did consulting work for the agency, right up to the beginning of the war. I never
saw anything. I'd say to analysts, 'Where's the threat?' " Their response, he recalls, was, "Silence."
Zinni's concern deepened as Cheney pressed on that day at the Opryland Hotel. "Time is not on our side," the
vice president said. "The risks of inaction are far greater than the risks of action."
Zinni's conclusion as he slowly walked off the stage that day was that the Bush administration was determined to
go to war. A moment later, he had another, equally chilling thought: "These guys don't understand what they are
getting into." |
