I did read Pollack's book. I don't happen to agree with Pollack, although Pollack doesn't even always agree with Pollack
Bunk.
Pollack is remarkably consistent, though he has changed his analysis in view of the failure to find WMD, a failure that surprised everyone, and has criticized the politicization of the intelligence community, all of which are appropriate criticisms. In view of the lacking WMD programs, he has also indicated that the timetable to get rid of Saddam was not as urgent as he thought, though I disagree with him because there is no guarantee that any US President other than Bush would have ever had the, well, balls, to take him on when Saddam's threat became more immediate.
Pollack does seem to imply that our intelligence community made some bizarre decisions, and used poor judgment- I happen to agree with him about that:
No, he doesn't say that at all. He says that after 1998, the intelligence services were not favored with reports from the inspectors and therefore went back to their old ways of analyzing things at a time when everyone understood containment to be not working and Saddam had cash from the oil for food program, circumstances that, along with Saddams' known penchant for WMD, suggested that he would be going hell for leather to get them. He also says that the intelligence agencies were manipulated.
He absolutely does not say that the intelligence agencies made "bizarre" judgments, just wrong ones.
I missed any statements by Pollack to the effect that Saddam was deterrable. If Saddam were deterrable in Pollack's judgment, I think I would know about it. I'd like to know what you think these statements were, I don't see them.
This is Pollack's bottom line:
The war was not all bad. I do not believe that it was a strategic mistake, although the appalling handling of postwar planning was. There is no question that Saddam Hussein was a force for real instability in the Persian Gulf, and that his removal from power was a tremendous improvement. There is also no question that he was pure evil, and that he headed one of the most despicable regimes of the past fifty years. I am grateful that the United States no longer has to contend with the malign influence of Saddam's Iraq in this economically irreplaceable and increasingly fragile part of the world; nor can I begrudge the Iraqi people one day of their freedom. What's more, we should not forget that containment was failing. The shameful performance of the United Nations Security Council members (particularly France and Germany) in 2002-2003 was final proof that containment would not have lasted much longer; Saddam would eventually have reconstituted his WMD programs, although further in the future than we had thought. |
