Politico: What Donald Rumsfeld Knew We Didn’t Know About Iraq

[@DCGoldPants]

On September 9, 2002, as the George W. Bush administration was launching its campaign to invade Iraq, a classified report landed on the desk of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It came from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and it carried an ominous note.

“Please take a look at this material as to what we don’t know about WMD,” Rumsfeld wrote to Air Force General Richard Myers. “It is big.”

 

The report was an inventory of what U.S. intelligence knew—or more importantly didn’t know—about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Its assessment was blunt: “We’ve struggled to estimate the unknowns. ... We range from 0% to about 75% knowledge on various aspects of their program.”

 

Myers already knew about the report. The Joint Staff’s director for intelligence had prepared it, but Rumsfeld’s urgent tone said a great deal about how seriously the head of the Defense Department viewed the report’s potential to undermine the Bush administration’s case for war. But he never shared the eight-page report with key members of the administration such as then-Secretary of State Colin Powell or top officials at the CIA, according to multiple sources at the State Department, White House and CIA who agreed to speak on condition of anonymity. Instead, the report disappeared, and with it a potentially powerful counter-narrative to the administration’s argument that Saddam Hussein’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons posed a grave threat to the U.S. and its allies, which was beginning to gain traction in major news outlets, led by the New York Times.

 

While the threat posed by a nuclear-armed Iraq was at the heart of the administration's case for war, the JCS report conceded: “Our knowledge of the Iraqi (nuclear) weapons program is based largely—perhaps 90%—on analysis of imprecise intelligence.”

 

The rationale for the invasion has long since been discredited, but the JCS report, now declassified, which a former Bush administration official forwarded in December, nevertheless has implications for both sides in the 2016 presidential race, in particular the GOP candidates who are relying for foreign policy advice on some of the architects of the war, and the Democratic front-runner, who once again is coming under fire from her primary opponent for supporting the invasion.

 

Then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, whose military assistant was on the short list of people copied on the JCS report, is one of Jeb Bush’s foreign policy experts. Other supporters of the war, though they do not appear to have been aware of the JCS report, are involved in the various advisory roles in the 2016 campaign. John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, is advising Ted Cruz; and Elliott Abrams and William Kristol are supporting Marco Rubio, whom Reuters reported is also briefed regularly by former Cheney adviser Eric Edelman.

 

The rise of ISIL and recent attacks in Paris and San Bernardino have given Democrat Bernie Sanders the ability to draw a straight line from the current Middle East chaos straight back to Clinton’s vote in favor of what he calls “one of the worst foreign policy blunders in the modern history of the United States,” a conflict that has claimed the lives of 4,500 Americans and some 165,000 Iraqis.

Rumsfeld was not under any legal or administrative obligation to circulate an internal DoD report, but not doing so raises questions about whether the administration withheld key information that could have undermined its case for war. Time and again, in the fall of 2002 and into early 2003, members of the administration spoke forcefully and without qualification about the threats they said Saddam Hussein posed. The JCS report undercut their assertions, and if it had been shared more widely within the administration, the debate would have been very different.

 

 

 

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/01/iraq-war-wmds-donald-rumsfeld-new-report-213530

 

More from the link including PDF.

[Riggo-toni]

Jeb has Wolfowitz on his staff...Rubio has Kristol. No wonder the GOP is ****ed.

[TradeTheBeal!]

War is very profitable.

[dfitzo53]

Not super surprised. I don't invest a ton of time into following politics, so I don't know how to parse the implications of some of these people advising various candidates. Some of them seem like non-issues.

[LadySkinsFan]

They are HUGE issues.  The Bush Administrators including Rumsfeld, Bolton, Wolfowitz, Cheney all knew there was nothing to the WMD fiction they promulgated.  Thus those in Congress didn't know everything they needed to know in voting to allow the invasion of Iraq.

 

What this means is the warmongers are supporting the GOP and Clinton probably gets a pass on her vote to support the invasion.

 

We are still mired in this soup 14 years after.  All based on lies. 

[twa]

the uncertainty was well known and a major reason for the invasion.

 

even the UN inspector was surprised by Saddam's intransigence and duplicity.

 

Yawn .....

[s0crates]

[Larry]

the uncertainty was well known and a major reason for the invasion.

.

Right.

[twa]

Right.

 

what you don't know is many times more critical than what you think you know.

[ExoDus84]

the uncertainty was well known and a major reason for the invasion.

 

even the UN inspector was surprised by Saddam's intransigence and duplicity.

 

Yawn .....

 

Uncertainty? More like willful ignorance.

 

I doubt they gave a ****. They were going in regardless.

[twa]

Uncertainty? More like willful ignorance.

 

I doubt they gave a ****. They were going in regardless.

 

Well there was certainly the desire.

 

Confucius say......Ignorance has many flavors

[Rocky21]

Houston-based energy-focused engineering and construction firm KBR, Inc. (NYSE:KBR), which was spun off from its parent, oilfield services provider Halliburton Co. (NYSE:HAL), in 2007 was given $39.5 billion in Iraq-related contracts over the past decade, with many of the deals given without any bidding from competing firms, such as a $568-million contract renewal in 2010 to provide housing, meals, water and bathroom services to soldiers, a deal that led to a Justice Department lawsuit over alleged kickbacks.

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/308-12/16561-focus-cheneys-halliburton-made-395-billion-on-iraq-war

[skinsmarydu]

Uncertainty? More like willful ignorance.

 

I doubt they gave a ****. They were going in regardless.

Yep, for the money in Rocky21's post. And it wasn't money for the nation, it was money for investors.

Then,left the dots to be connected so easily.

[Popeman38]

Houston-based energy-focused engineering and construction firm KBR, Inc. (NYSE:KBR), which was spun off from its parent, oilfield services provider Halliburton Co. (NYSE:HAL), in 2007 was given $39.5 billion in Iraq-related contracts over the past decade, with many of the deals given without any bidding from competing firms, such as a $568-million contract renewal in 2010 to provide housing, meals, water and bathroom services to soldiers, a deal that led to a Justice Department lawsuit over alleged kickbacks.

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/308-12/16561-focus-cheneys-halliburton-made-395-billion-on-iraq-war

This logic is easy. There is only one problem with the logic: KBR was the overseas logistics provider for the DoD before we invaded Iraq. KBR was our logistic support in both Bosnia and Kosovo. They hired tons of local nationals to staff the camps, from laundry to barbers to landscapers to food workers.

 

Hell, the predecessor companies to KBR had contracts in WW2.

 

EDIT: Additionally, KBR is not an energy-focused engineering and construction firm. They are an engineering, procurement, and construction business (LOGISTICS).

[twa]

Logic has no place here......begone with ye mysticisms

[Riggo-toni]

Uncertainty? More like willful ignorance.

I doubt they gave a ****. They were going in regardless.

Pretty much. If anyone gets a chance to see the documentary Spymasters (I think it's on Showtime), I recommend it. George Tenet admits the decision had already been made to go in before the now infamous "slam dunk" assertion.

I don't believe it was motivated by potential profits for Haliburton; rather, I think it was the delusions of people like W and Wolfowitz who were so ignorant of the dynamics at play that they were certain Saddam was the source of all evil and suffering in Iraq, rather than realizing he was just as much the byproduct of the inherent instability of such an artificial Western creation.

On paper, Iraq was a widely secular Arab society with a strong educated middle class and both oil and water. The dream of the neocons was a sort of reverse domino effect, where instituting democracy in Iraq would create a contagion of democracy across the region. Instead, it quite predictably inflamed centuries old ethnic and sectarian hatreds.

A man who never even held a passport prior to becoming President, who lauded Putin for his kindness towards his own family, was simply incapable of remotely comprehending a culture where people hate their enemies more than they love their own children and even celebrate their martyrdom. WMD was the only rallying cry that could convince the American public and the global community of the necessity for action, but it was never the primary motivation. Just a means to an imaginary end.

[Rocky21]

This logic is easy. There is only one problem with the logic: KBR was the overseas logistics provider for the DoD before we invaded Iraq. KBR was our logistic support in both Bosnia and Kosovo. They hired tons of local nationals to staff the camps, from laundry to barbers to landscapers to food workers.

 

Hell, the predecessor companies to KBR had contracts in WW2.

 

EDIT: Additionally, KBR is not an energy-focused engineering and construction firm. They are an engineering, procurement, and construction business (LOGISTICS).

You aren’t concerned that a company that the Vice President was a major stockholder in received no bid contracts in a war he supported based on falsehoods?  Guess not.    

[Predicto]

I don't believe it was motivated by potential profits for Haliburton; rather, I think it was the delusions of people like W and Wolfowitz who were so ignorant of the dynamics at play 

 

 

 

Spot on.   100 percent correct.  

 

And yes, it is chilling that those same clueless "experts" are the ones advising Rubio, Jeb and Cruz today.  

[Going Commando]

Spot on.   100 percent correct.  

 

And yes, it is chilling that those same clueless "experts" are the ones advising Rubio, Jeb and Cruz today.

Which is one single reason big enough to me to not vote for them. How have they not been excised from the party?

[dfitzo53]

I should clarify my post a little bit. I don't mean that I believe these people should be in advisory positions to prospective presidents.

What I meant was more along the lines that I don't think these things are going to change many opinions. I think whether you were voting for or against Rubio/Jeb/etc., that probably hasn't changed.

[Popeman38]

You aren’t concerned that a company that the Vice President was a major stockholder in received no bid contracts in a war he supported based on falsehoods?  Guess not.    

First, Cheney owned 0 stock in KBR. KBR is a subsidiary of Halliburton.

Second, KBR has been in the military logistics business since WW2 (under previous owners).

Third, Vanguard is the single biggest holder of Halliburton, so EVERYONE profited from Halliburton winning contracts (if you are invested at all, you own Vanguard).

Fourth, apply the same level of scrutiny you apply to Cheney to every other politician (i.e. they are all rich from shady deals -- IT'S HOW THEY GET THE POWER).

 

Am I concerned? Nope. Every President, since the beginning of time, throws business to friendly companies. No one gave a **** when Bill Clinton was throwing deals to KBR (he created a sole-source contract for KBR in the Balkans rather than switch to Dyncorp). Anyone who knows the contracting game knows once you get your foot in the door, you usually stay there. It is a sweet spot that guarantees a profit (expenses + a % on top).

[@DCGoldPants]

Concerned now? No, what's done is done.

What bothers me is that a guy like Rumsfeld and his inner circle did something, or didn't do something that played a huge role in the deaths of almost 5,000 American Soldiers. Now he's out there making video games. I **** you not.

 

This isn't missing a memo about being attacked with planes within the US. This isn't confusion of an embassy being attacked. This is worse to the umpteenth degree. 

[TheItalianStallion]

Yawn. The "Bush lied" argument has been refuted by multiple investigations from 2004-6. It's unfortunate - but not surprising - that this kind of crap continues to generate chatter years after the fact; there are still people who think that the moon landing was staged.

 

WMD was the only rallying cry that could convince the American public and the global community of the necessity for action, but it was never the primary motivation. Just a means to an imaginary end.

 

I've encountered plenty of people, even well after the war started going bad, who said things like "I would've supported removing Hussein for humanitarian reasons, but Bush lied about the WMDs." The 1998 Iraq Liberation act and the "whereas" section of the 2002 Joint Resolution covered many reasons beyond just WMDs.

This isn't missing a memo about being attacked with planes within the US. 

 

That memo was about the passengers of planes being taken hostage, not about the planes themselves being used as missiles.