All countries make mistakes [...] but countries compound their errors when they cannot learn from them ...

Image by ktpupp via Flickr"All countries make mistakes, because leaders are fallible and no political system is immune from folly. But countries compound their errors when they cannot learn from them, and when they don't hold the people responsible for them accountable."

Stephen M. Walt
Foreign Policy | Whitewashing the failure in Iraq



In this country, we don't hold folks accountable.  Unlike the Internets, we actually believe in second chances in real life.  So folks get humongous book deals instead, and the public gets suckered 'xcuse me, bombarded with ads to buy 'em books and learn the "real" stories. Mistakes are never owned, only that "mistakes were made," how or by whom needs a flashlight, but batteries not included.  Sorry.

Some of the personalities who were associated with the Iraq War have written their stories.  Books in need of shelves, in no particular order ....

L. Paul Bremer | My Year in Iraq: The Struggle to Build a Future of Hope

Tommy Franks |American Soldier

Douglas Feith | War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism

Richard Perle | An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror

George Tenet | At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA

Condi Rice | Condoleezza Rice: A Memoir of My Extraordinary, Ordinary Family and Me

George W. Bush  | Decision Points

Tony Blair | A Journey: My Political Life

You may have to wait a bit longer-- Paul Wolfowitz, Stephen Hadley, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Chenney have yet to contribute to the post-war Iraq memoir and non-memoir genre. 

Fortunately, we are poor and do not have money to splurge on any of the books above, but we'll forgo weeks of coffee and promised to buy the next hardcover with any of the following titles -- "True Confession: How I Broke Iraq," "My Journey Through a Mushroom Cloud and Out of Iraq," "The Folly of Turning Iraq Into Our Own Image (I Should Have Thunk This Through)."  

If you want to save money (and your sanity, if you have a tendency to bark at books), go ahead and check out the National Security Archive over at GWU which has now rolled out its three-part series that re-examined several aspects of the run-up to the Iraq war. 4,743 reasons why this is a must-read. And it's free.

September 22, 2010
THE IRAQ WAR -- PART I:  The U.S. Prepares for Conflict, 2001
Documents Outline Policy Makers’ Aims for the Conflict and Postwar Rule of Iraq

As available documentation and a review of the literature show, the Bush administration was well along the path to war before the 9/11 attacks, and certainly well before the protracted 2002-2003 debates over the re-admission of weapons inspectors to Iraq and a U.N. resolution to legitimize the targeting of Baghdad. At this point, the weight of evidence supports an observation made in April 2002 by members of the covert Iraq Operations Group – Iraq “regime change” was already on Bush’s agenda when he took office in January 2001. (Note 33) September 11 was not the motivation for the U.S. invasion of Iraq – it was a distraction from it.

October 1, 2010
THE IRAQ WAR -- PART II: Was There Even a Decision?
U.S. and British Documents Give No Indication Alternatives Were Seriously Considered

Among other findings from the documents, the posting’s editors conclude that the Bush administration sought to avoid the emergence of opposition to its actions by means of secrecy and deception, holding the war plan as a “compartmented concept,” restricting information even from allies like the United Kingdom, and pretending that no war plans were being reviewed by the president.
[...]
Bush administration disdain for a diplomatic solution to the issue of Iraq’s potential for developing weapons of mass destruction is further evidenced, the editors conclude, in early resistance to a multilateral solution through the United Nations (UN), in a preference to substitute direct U.S. control for a UN monitoring regime, and in the difficulty encountered by both America’s closest ally, the United Kingdom, as well as the U.S. State Department, in inducing President Bush to agree to try a UN initiative.

October 4, 2010
THE IRAQ WAR -- PART III: Shaping the Debate
U.S. and British Documents Show Transatlantic Propaganda Cooperation

With the aim of strengthening the political case for going to war, both governments regularly coordinated their assessments, the records show, occasionally downplaying and even eliminating points of disagreement over the available intelligence. The new materials, acquired largely through the U.K. Freedom of Information Act and often featuring less redacted versions of previously released records, also reveal that the Blair administration, far earlier than has been appreciated until now, utilized public relations specialists to help craft the formal intelligence “white papers” about Iraq’s WMD program. 

  
Also check out the a Timeline and a collection of Quotes to provide additional historical background and to convey a sense of the tone of the rancorous discourse that led up to the Iraq war.

Warning: Reading the quotes collection is a terrible trip down memory lane -- the crap said may actually make you cry. Strap yourself in your chair before you start reading.  

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• "Palin Demands Honesty from Obama, Not Bush, on Iraq" and related posts (perrspectives.com)
• The truths about Iraq that Obama couldn't utter (salon.com)
• Joseph A. Palermo: An Unsanitized Look at the Origins of the Iraq War (huffingtonpost.com)