There were those who told the truth about Iraq before we invaded the country.
Maj. Scott Ritter, former chief weapons inspector was one of them. He tried to tell us, "Iraq is not a threat to the US." Too bad no one wanted to hear what he had to say. Of course now it is evident he was correct. Col. David Hackworth writes...
I asked Ritter if he felt totally exonerated. "I would feel a lot better if there were a way to reverse the hands of time," he told me, "so that people would have paid more attention to what I said in the past, and we didn't find ourselves caught up in this ongoing tragedy."
What a shame that the president and his platoon of let's-get-Saddam neocons, Congress and the CIA's Tenet didn't listen to the man-in-the-know when he cautioned: "U.S. and Iraqi casualties will be significant. ... We can't go to war based on ignorance."
But go to war we did. And now we've filled more than 530 body bags, medevaced thousands of soldiers, caused thousands more to be psychologically scarred, created tens of thousands of Iraqi casualties and stuck ourselves dead center in an ever-deepening tar pit.
And the bloodshed continues. Tuesday over 50 Iraqis were killed when a car bomb blew up outside a police station. Yesterday, 47 were killed when another bomb blew up outside an Iraqi army recruitment center. In addition, over 600 Iraqi policemen have been killed since April.
And then there's this: An estimated 10,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed since our invasion. It is difficult to get an exact count so this figure is probably conservative. Even more difficult is figuring out the number of Iraqi soldiers who died but some believe around 9,000 to 10,000 were killed before May 1st.
When we think of coalition dead we most often think of our American soldiers. But added to the whole, coalition casualties (American plus coalition members), there have been about 634 killed to date. Not officially considered part of the coalition the Kurds, who fought along side American Special Forces in the north, lost about 100 in the initial fighting.
For sure, people in high places need truth-tellers like Ritter to keep them straight. Had Bush talked to Ritter before opting for pre-emptive war, Bush might have been convinced to rearrange his options, and we might not be in this mess.
Evaluating intelligence calls for an open mind and sound judgment. Both were AWOL in our political leadership because of a preconceived agenda or an attack of yellow belly-itis that interfered with standing tall.
Considering recent questions concerning Bush's "Guard" record I'm sure it's no accident that Colonel Hackworh used the word, "AWOL" to describe our leaders. I have to admit, that comment put a smile on my face.