Image via WikipediaAP reported that former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Friday said that the US government failed to understand how "broken Iraq was as a society."
She had great timing – speaking on the 7th anniversary of the Iraq invasion! Apparently she spoke at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She was quoted in the report as saying, "I would many times over liberate Iraq again from Saddam Hussein" {snip} "I think he was a danger to the Middle East."
She had great timing – speaking on the 7th anniversary of the Iraq invasion! Apparently she spoke at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She was quoted in the report as saying, "I would many times over liberate Iraq again from Saddam Hussein" {snip} "I think he was a danger to the Middle East."
But, um -- ‘xcuse me – wasn’t it the tight “in group" in the US Government who have never been to war, who lived in a tide pool, armed with a shallow understanding of the region’s history who failed to understand the trick question of the century?
Foggy Bottom certainly knew what was going to happen. Remember our folks there even wrote “The Perfect Storm” memo? No, it wasn't written by George Clooney, silly! What, nobody saw that memo? Oh, what a shame …it was in the inbox!
That memo is cited in Ryan Crocker’s Wikipedia entry and is still presumably classified until such time when nobody remembers it or cares about it. And we probably won’t get to read it until the FRUS series on the region is released in 2040. For now, we’ll have to make do with this online source:
According to the book, Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell by Washington Post reporter Karen DeYoung, as the Bush administration was preparing for war with Iraq in late 2002, then Secretary of State, Colin Powell ordered Crocker and then Special Assistant to the Secretary of State, William Burns to prepare a secret memo examining the risks associated with a U.S. invasion of Iraq.[6] The six-page memo, titled "The Perfect Storm", stated that toppling Saddam Hussein could unleash long-repressed sectarian and ethnic tensions, that the Sunni minority would not easily relinquish power, and that powerful neighbors such as Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia would try to move in to influence events. It also cautioned that the United States would have to start from scratch building a political and economic system because Iraq's infrastructure was in tatters.[6]
Ah -- lessons learned for reading/not reading the inbox?... consigning the memo to a footnote? What, it wasn't in the footnote? Where ... opps -- what…??
But -- did the somebodies read it, read it but did not understand it, did not read it so nothing to understand, or was it accidentally flushed down the toilet because they run out of toilet paper.... what did the somebodies do with that memo?! Seven years on, and I'm still terribly, terribly confuse about that memo's fate... I may have to see a shrink...
In any case, it’s all history now for folks who did the war kumbaya. For those still fighting the war seven years on, it is as real as ever. Thousands dead forever lost. Thousands maimed will never be whole again. Apparently $747.3 billion spent and we’re not even any safer. Because dammit -- it turned out Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein were not BFF as we thought they were!
But we got Saddam! Yep! And democracy is sprouting in the Middle East. Thank goodness! And that -- makes me sleep real tight kind of snuggy as a buggy at night. I better go to bed now ... 
Goodnight Rummy
Goodnight Condi
Goodnight Georgie
And Dickie’s groupies
Goodnight brown outs
And burst balloons
Goodnight dead bears
And broken chairs
Goodnight poor kittens
And torn mittens
Goodnight cracked clocks
And missing socks
Goodnight bombed house
And stinky mouse
Goodnight nightmares
And stale éclairs
Goodnight nobodies
Left on the streets
And goodnight to the old guard
who shouted "duck N cooover!"
Goodnight, goodnight—
Sleep tight dream cakes
Tomorrow is another
Cake walk in the I-E-D park.
God bless Rummy,
God bless Condi,
God bless Georgie
And Dickie's groupies,
God bless them all for our
"Made in China" security blankies.
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