With the third anniversary of the war upon us, many are reflecting on the erroneous statements of blow-hard pundits and politicans who said we would be greeted with flowers not RPGs; that we would find WMDs; that the overthrow of Saddam would threaten and eventually topple totalitarian regimes creating a domino effect of democracy in the Middle East; that the war would help bring a resolution to Israel-Palestine; that it was part of the war on terror and that it would weaken Al-Qaeda and lead to its demise. Meanwhile our media parrotted these claims and never truly challenged our leaders. Little credence was given to the more than a million Americans, including me, who marched against the impending war in the freezing cold in Washington and New York, joined by millions around the world. Our voices and warnings went unheeded and the US and UK invaded Iraq.
Now many who brought us into this war are walking back the cat and coming up with absurd excuses. As Iraq gets worse and worse, it is a new set of lines we hear: we never found the WMDs because of a "world-wide intelligence failure." My favorite is "no one could have predicted the insurgency." Well, one person predicted the insurgency and I thought it might be nice to acknowledge him. Thomas Powers, author of "The Man Who Kept the Secrets," the Richard Helms bio, and "Intelligence Wars", stated on
NPR's Fresh Air three days before the start of the war on March 17, 2003, the following:
Terry Gross: If we create a new government[in Iraq], and the government is as you describe it, more of a client government, do you think that government is going to be under attack by other Iraqis or by terrorists from other countries?
Powers: It is hard to say when the trouble will begin. You know the thing that worries me about this whole episode is the magnitude of the grand scheme that the Bush Administration has dreamed up for transforming the political landscape of the Middle East. Big ideas are the ones that give you the most trouble. Trying to make the world perfect just leads to disaster in my opinion. And I think that is the record of human history. Whenever we've engaged in a really big endeavor, trouble comes. Now exactly when that is going to happen I don't know.
There is going to be some kind of government there, we're going to be there. Eventually the fighting stops and the dust settles, everything is quiet for awhile and for a time it looks like "Gee, this wasn't going to be so hard, this is going to be a big success." But you have changed the fundamental relationships of people there and gradually they realize what the limits of their actions are and they realize, "Well we can't have any military forces with tanks attacking the Americans but it isn't that hard to sneak up on them in the streets." I think an endless amount of trouble will begin to bubble forth. I figure we will have a month of war, then a month of indecision, and we will have a couple months where everything looks pretty good and then after that things are going to go down hill. It's gonna be trouble and it's gonna be money and it will take a generation to resolve it.
Thomas Powers has always had strong connections to the intelligence community and I believe that this statement reflected many of the concerns of those within the CIA before the war. In summary, there were voices that warned that the Iraq adventure would be a disaster and they were legion. They were yours and mine. The voices of the people. Unfortuately, they just weren't heard.