Hal O'Brien

US News and World Report has a new piece today. Some choice quotes:

On the evening of February 1, two dozen American officials gathered in a spacious conference room at the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Va. The time had come to make the public case for war against Iraq. For six hours that Saturday, the men and women of the Bush administration argued about what Secretary of State Colin Powell should--and should not--say at the United Nations Security Council four days later. Not all the secret intelligence about Saddam Hussein's misdeeds, they found, stood up to close scrutiny. At one point during the rehearsal, Powell tossed several pages in the air. "I'm not reading this," he declared. "This is bullshit."

Right up there with, "Fuck Saddam. We're taking him out," don't you think?

OTOH, Colin, you did do your reading, didn't you?

In September 2002, U.S. News has learned, the Defense Intelligence Agency issued a classified assessment of Iraq's chemical weapons. It concluded: "There is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons . . . ." At about the same time, Rumsfeld told Congress that Saddam's "regime has amassed large, clandestine stockpiles of chemical weapons, including VX, sarin, cyclosarin and mustard gas."

Mr. Arnaz, he say, "Rummmmmy?! You got some 'splainin' to do!"

I hope the Judiciary Committee has that chamber properly air conditioned for the summer... Looks like we may be getting some hearings...

The New York Times has an article where Rumsfeld tries the Reagan Defense -- he can't recall making any statements he has made -- and tries strenuously to hand off the war planning process to Gen. Tommy Franks. So, when the going gets tough, the tough blame their subordinates. (I hope he's just as calm about this when Jorge does the same thing to him.)

But, down at the end of the article, we find this:

Mr. Rumsfeld said that he was not concerned that the United States had yet to find any weapons of mass destruction. He said most of such weapons are believed to be at sites closer to Baghdad, and troops had not yet reached them.

Mind you, this is the same Administration that, until two weeks ago, was saying the weapons were so widely dispersed across the whole territory of Iraq that the UN inspectors could never find them. Now, ever so conveniently, the weapons are concentrated in Baghdad... Where they couldn't have been used for the last 12 years against either the Kurds or the Iranians, or our own troops, no, nowhere as operationally useful as that...

Snark hunt. Soon to be a boojum.

From atlaz, as a followup to my post about Schwarzkopf's briefing officer's commentary on NPR:

A great article in the Washington Post, outlining Schwarzkopf's musings on the dubious achievements of the current Administration.

Great section on Rumsfeld:

"The Rumsfeld thing . . . that's what comes up," when he calls old Army friends in the Pentagon, he says.

"When he makes his comments, it appears that he disregards the Army," Schwarzkopf says. "He gives the perception when he's on TV that he is the guy driving the train and everybody else better fall in line behind him -- or else."

That dismissive posture bothers Schwarzkopf because he thinks Rumsfeld and the people around him lack the background to make sound military judgments by themselves. He prefers the way Cheney operated during the Gulf War. "He didn't put himself in the position of being the decision-maker as far as tactics were concerned, as far as troop deployments, as far as missions were concerned."

Rumsfeld, by contrast, worries him. "It's scary, okay?" he says. "Let's face it: There are guys at the Pentagon who have been involved in operational planning for their entire lives, okay? . . . And for this wisdom, acquired during many operations, wars, schools, for that just to be ignored, and in its place have somebody who doesn't have any of that training, is of concern."

Can't wait for the movie.

On the other hand, as atlaz also pointed out, it's strange that the Post buried this in the "Style" section, back in January. But, as the Emperor says in Amadeus, there it is.