From what I read, the most honest account out so far by anybody involved in the Iraqi invasion is Douglas Feith's "War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism." He has caught the most flack and been the most open. NRO has posted a series of interviews with him about his book, and he has a Web page up on it. waranddecision.com
Here are the highlights from his interview:
1) Critics argue that U.S. officials manipulated intelligence in order to boost public support for the war. There mantra is "Bush lied, people died." Not true, says Douglas Feith. Bush believed the same intelligence information that Clinton believed. Saddam, meanwhile, was corrupting that intelligence, leading the world to believe the WMD stockpiles were there.
2) Feith discusses the war blunders. First, the failure to provide adequate security forces after the fall of Saddam. Feith describes how this grew out of a sense that a build-up of U.S. forces would play to enemy propaganda. Second, the decision to maintain an occupation government in Iraq for over a year. Feith says this came counter to the idea of "liberation, not occupation."
3) Why was the CIA's pre-war intelligence about Iraq so faulty? Simple, says Feith. According to a congressional report, "the CIA did not have . . . a single agent dedicated to the WMD issue in Iraq before the war. Not one." Making matters worse, the CIA neither offered the president alternatives to his Iraq policy, nor did it wholeheartedly support that policy once it was implemented.
4) Feith describes how WMD in Iraq — or the lack thereof — changed everything. Despite the fact that the WMD threat was but one of several dangers posed by Saddam's regime, the failure to discover the WMD stockpiles prompted the Bush administration to shift its rhetoric away from past threats and toward Iraq's future. In doing so the administration only empowered its critics.
5) Is the U.S. equipped to deal with national-security problems around the world? Feith says no, pointing out the antiquated organization of our entire security community as well as the ineffective mess that is the CIA. Of course, our national security ultimately depends on the people in charge. Feith rates a few of the bigger names.
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