Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Staggering
On the eve of George Bush's address to the nation from Fort Bragg, where he will inevitably use our troops as a political flak jacket, the news from Britain becomes even more striking.
The piece outlines letters written to Tony Blair by his most senior advisers about the brewing war in Iraq in 2002. Their advice was quite clear:
PS: Sorry for the slow blogging, I was traveling all weekend.
The piece outlines letters written to Tony Blair by his most senior advisers about the brewing war in Iraq in 2002. Their advice was quite clear:
"I think there is a real risk that the administration underestimates the difficulties," David Manning, Blair's chief foreign policy adviser at the time, wrote to the prime minister on March 14, 2002, after he returned from meetings with Condoleezza Rice, then Bush's national security adviser, and her staff. "They may agree that failure isn't an option, but this does not mean they will necessarily avoid it."There's much more in the article. It's something to think about tonight when Bush talks about our steadfast British partners. Turns out that their doubts extended much farther then previously known. When your only ally in a war doesn't trust you farther than they can throw you, it becomes clear that the war was ill-founded in the first place.
A U.S. official with firsthand knowledge of the events said the concerns raised by British officials "played a useful role."
"Were they paid a tremendous amount of heed?" said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "I think it's hard to say they were."
PS: Sorry for the slow blogging, I was traveling all weekend.
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