Inside Out · 28 May, 12:44 PM

I’ve been reading a great deal on Iraq in the last few months, so I was interested to hear that Scott Mc Clellan is out with another book claiming that the Bush administration came into office with an agenda to oust Saddam Hussein and started the Iraq war based on shabby pretexts. There’s certainly no shortage of outsiders making that claim, but McClellan is joining Paul O’Neill and George Tenet as insiders making the same claims. I’ve seen a couple news reports that bring up the same point: why now? Why not air their grievances back in 2001-2002, when it mattered? It’s a fair point; I’ve heard the same criticism of Tenet’s book, but it doesn’t diminish the claims of the authors. What’s sad is the pattern that’s emerged out of the Bush White House: people who supposedly knew better, should have known better, didn’t speak up, and didn’t serve the public interest when they had the opportunity and the obligation to do so. It’s not so much a story that reactionary kooks like Cheney, Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld were in office, the hallmark of this administration will be that nobody acted to stop them.

— Gordon Weakliem

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