There was an interesting interview on Wednesday's Hardball that seems to have escaped the notice of everyone here at dKos. Richard Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations and former Director of Policy Planning for the United States Department of State under Colin Powell, made several damning statements about the Bush administration and the war in Iraq.
Haass was in the White House during the time when the war in Iraq was being sold to the American people. He said that George W. Bush's motivation was that he "wanted to be a consequential president" and the real purpose of the people selling the war was to "transform the middle east" but the decision to invade Iraq "was all wrong. It was assumption piled on assumption."
According to Haas, "There was never a national security decision making process in the administration." (...) "You never had a meeting, before this war was launched, as extraordinary as it is, you never had a meeting, where this was argued out from A to Z." Apparently they did not think there was a need to seriously discuss a "transforming event in history." Haas said, "this president got the national secutiry council and process he wanted, not the one he needed."
I can't get the embed clip to work ... it works fine in "Preview" but shows up as hypertext when posted.
Here is a link to the clip, it is worth watching.
We must consider that the appearance on Hardball was one stop on Haass' tour promoting his most recent book,War of Necessity, War of Choice, but hearing one of the principals of the Bush administration say that there was never a meeting to discuss the consequences of invading Iraq is extraordinary.