In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, Geoff Hoon, British defence secretary during the initial phases of the Iraq war/occupation, details fatal errors in planning.
Geoff Hoon reveals that Britain disagreed with the US administration over two key decisions in May 2003, two months after the invasion - to disband Iraq's army and "de-Ba'athify" its civil service. Mr Hoon also said he and other senior ministers completely underestimated the role and influence of the vice-president, Dick Cheney.
The first decision was a major factor in creating the violence in Iraq today, and the second paralyzed the country's infrastructure. Hoon is clear: the British strongly disagreed, but were continually trumped by Cheney:
"Sometimes ... Tony had made his point with the president, and I'd made my point with Don [Rumsfeld] and Jack [Straw] had made his point with Colin [Powell] and the decision actually came out of a completely different place. And you think: what did we miss? I think we missed Cheney."
It gives an interesting picture of the president's ability to negotiate with foreign governments.
His account of the intelligence failure is particularly puzzling.
Mr Hoon added: "I saw intelligence from the first time I came into office, in May 1999 - week in, week out - that said Saddam had weapons of mass destruction ... I have real difficulty in understanding why it was, over such a long period of time, we were told this and, moreover, why we acted upon it." (my stress)
If this is anything like true, then somewhere it seems that the decision to simplify the government's decisions through deceit was made. Or there was staggering incompetence. Or, finally, as Moyers has detailed in his report on the press coverage, the same basic deception was planted in enough places that people came to feel they were checking up on the story when in reality they were just getting repeats of the same source's input. Or something else. Any suggestions as to what it could have been?