War Rationale: Version 10.0

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/10143

P.J. Crowley is senior fellow and director of national defense and homeland security and Robert O. Boorstin is senior vice president of national security at the Center for American Progress


In the year since the invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration has repeatedly shifted its justification for going to war and constantly changed its story on intelligence, the United Nations, reconstruction, political transition and the cost to the American taxpayer. More than anything, the administration's war in Iraq resembles a software program that, at first, works brilliantly, but then catches the user in a cycle of "fatal error" messages.

Here then, in Silicon Valley terms, is a review of the Bush administration's year in Iraq:

Saddam Hussein poses an 'imminent threat' to the American people.


Version 1.0 - Saddam Hussein is an imminent threat
Version 1.01 - Saddam Hussein is a gathering threat
Version 1.02 - Saddam Hussein poses a real and dangerous threat
Version 1.1 - The smoking gun will be a mushroom cloud
Version 1.2 - We can't afford to wait
Version 1.3 - We never said imminent
Version 1.3.1 - OK, maybe we did say it once or twice
Version 1.4 - We should have been more precise


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[Gman]

1. Version 10.0?

They passed up AOL.

10.1 We may need to augment forces in Iraq.
10.2 Draft? We never said "draft".
10.3 Of course if we planned a draft we would be talking about it now rather than after the election.
10.4 ???