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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group

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To: epicure who wrote (219257)	2/18/2007 5:05:29 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (4) of 281500

Considering what we've heard since, from the crumbling justifications for the war, to the errant estimates for its cost, and the implausible scenarios for "reconstruction", I think it's fair for someone to take the position that this administration really can't add. I don't see any inference in the article that the administration can use only CIA approved data. Au contraire, that outrage that the administration would decide on war without the full blessing of the CIA runs through and through the piece. . Since the CIA didn't really buy off on Bush's plans (and in retrospect that makes them seem a bit more on the ball then Bush), it makes sense that they don't want to suffer unduly for Bush's mistakes You are far too charitable. They were determined to undermine the Bush policy from day one. The whole "Plamegate" affair is only intelligible as a very successful and not so covert action against the Bush White in general and Dick Cheney in particular. Ditto the whole "anonymous" Scheuer book published during 2004, which meant it was written and approved by the CIA in 2003. That is unprecedented, to try to destroy a sitting President during a war. As for "being more on the ball" - you are conflating two different arguments. One is the argument for the need for war in the first place, which rests on weighing the costs of war against the costs of inaction. Current arguments conveniently imply that the costs of inaction were very low and the status quo ante was sustainable. But they don't go into the matter, and for good reason, because the situation was unsustainable and all likely outcomes had some very bad results for the US. The second is argument about how to wage the war and what it would cost. I don't know what the CIA said back then - I literally heard nothing from them about Iraq fracturing. Noted experts like Phebe Marr and Anthony Cordesman were saying that Iraq wouldn't fracture and I never heard different from the CIA. I strongly suspect their arguments back then bear no relation to what Pillar is saying now. I know that back then all I heard was the CIA both sliming the Iraqi exiles that DoD was working with AND claiming that they had been mislead by them, a line of argument that self-destructs through contradiction.

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