The Neocons Knew!

[kpete]

To the Editor:

Re "The Decider Sticks With the Derider" (column, April 19):

There's a conundrum hidden within Maureen Dowd's column about the failure of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. It's one I've been puzzling over since the Bush administration began its drumbeat for war in Iraq.

There is now considerable evidence — from Richard A. Clarke, the former counterterrorism adviser, former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and other former members of the administration — to support Ms. Dowd's statement that Mr. Rumsfeld "wanted to invade Iraq because he thought it would be easy."

But if Mr. Rumsfeld and his colleagues truly believed that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, how easy could the invasion be?

Common sense suggests only one answer: We invaded Iraq not because we thought Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, but because we thought he didn't.

The administration would like us to think that it was simply mistaken about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein; but that's yet another lie, and perhaps the biggest one of all.

Jack Lechner

New York, April 19, 2006

The writer was an executive producer of "The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons From the Life of Robert S. McNamara."
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/20/opinion/l20dowd.html?_r=1&n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fLetters&oref=slogin
via:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/4/20/83326/9267

[adriennui]

1. what is the definition of neocon?

are any religious wackos considered neo cons (falwell, robertson, etc.).

[Roland99]

3. In a nutshell, followers of Irving Kristol...

some came out of Henry "Scoop" Jackson's office and others were followers of Leo Strauss's mindset.

[Lochloosa]

7. Go here and read. Then you will know who the Neo Cons

are...http://www.newamericancentury.org/

[sinkingfeeling]

2. I've thought that all along. It's why they picked Iraq as the 'test case'

instead of Iran, with its strong army. They knew that Saddam was on shakey ground after the years of sanctions and Iraq I war. It was to be a 'cake walk'. I don't care what the previous administration thought about Iraq's WMDs, common sense, always said that those weapons disappeared in the early 1990's.

[Roland99]

4. Iraq was low-hanging fruit

And it gave the US a chance to perform a "squeeze play" on Iran from the east and the west.

[scordem]

5. I don't know...

...there's a difference between having the components of WMD's and having a nuke all ready to go....

[Marr]

6. Yes. The Bush Admin. has made it very clear that the only way to

certainly avoid a US invasion is to get WMD. It's the reason we haven't invaded Korea- neocons will freely admit this on television. The logical extension of that is the Bush Admin. knew very well that Iraq posessed no WMD.