"Confusion Will Be [Our] Epitaph"

And I thought that the Bush admin might really have manipulated, "cherry-picked," warped, misconstrued, maliciously withheld important intelligence about Saddam Hussein's WMDs. The threat posed by the former Iraqi distator has come under intense questioning lately.

Some say that Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld misused in some way the intelligence that was available in order to make a case for war. These are serious accusations, and the administartion has come out swinging against those critics who have gone so far as to call the administration liars.

I must say that from the time when this war was being not-debated in Congress, I have said that the Bush administration misused intelligence--much of which was even available on-line to the many journalists who joined in lock-step with the calls for this war.

Be that as it may, recent statements by VP Chenery and Defense chief Rumsfeld give me pause about the exact consciousness involved in any deception perpetrated by the admin. Just today, for example, the VP said:

Those who advocate a sudden withdraw from Iraq should answer a couple simple questions. Would the United States and other free nations be better off or worse off with Zarqawi, Bin Laden and Zawahiri in control Iraq? Would we be safer or less safe with Iraq ruled by men intent upon the destruction of our country.

Now, as much as I disagree with and find Cheney's recent lobbying for torture reprehensible, I find his statement arresting. Indeed, I don't want the Islamo-fascists running things in the mideast. I also don't want to see Osama bib-Laden appointed the caliph of Islam. Yet, I also know that the majority of those fighting against the US are Iraqis and that foreign terrorists make up only a small portion of the ilk blowing up men, women, and chidlren.

Still, let's give the VP a benefit of the doubt for a minute. His comments imply that the Iraqi army and polics are simply not up to snuff and will be incapable of defeating the jihadists in Iraq. Notwithstanding the fact that Congress has been pulling teeth to get the admin to talk staright about this very issue, maybe the VP's right.

Then he better talk to Donald Rumsfeld. That's because just yesterday Rumsfeld said that the Iraqis were ready to take over and that we could start to at least conceive of the possibility of pulling our troops out. Of people who pooh-pooh the idea that the Iraqis are ready to take responsibility for their destiny, Rumsfeld said:

People who denigrate their [the Iraqi Army's and ploice] competence and capability are flat wrong. They’re making a mistake. They either don’t understand the situation or they’re trying to confuse it, but the Iraqi security forces are well respected by the Iraqi people. They’re doing a very good job.

This comes on the--to me--shocking revelation that Rumsfeld was against the invasion of Iraq, as he asserted on TV yesterday.

As I say, I used to think it was duplicity on the admin's part that got us to war. Now I am starting to entertain that it is just dumb confusion--something like the "left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing" or worse.