Tomorrow's Washington Post article by Bob Woodward is out here. Initial thoughts - it is as blockbuster as it should be. That Woodward is the one doing it will, I hope, be an irrelevant point. The major media have got to be able to start saying things like this:
On May 26, the Pentagon released an unclassified report to Congress, required by law, that contradicted the Joint Chiefs' secret assessment. The public report sent to Congress said the "appeal and motivation for continued violent action will begin to wane in early 2007."The short of it? They lied. Period. What Woodward shows in detail is that they knew things were bad and said the opposite to the American public. They lied.
There was a vast difference between what the White House and the Pentagon knew about the situation in Iraq and what they were saying publicly. But the discrepancy was not surprising. In memos, reports and internal debates, high-level officials of the Bush administration have voiced their concern about the United States' ability to bring peace and stability to Iraq since early in the occupation.
What's also clear is that they all knew. Rumsfeld knew in intricate detail. Condi knew about the true reality on the ground in Iraq - and it's stark:
On Feb. 10, 2005, two weeks after Rice became secretary of state, Zelikow presented her with a 15-page, single-spaced secret memo. "At this point Iraq remains a failed state shadowed by constant violence and undergoing revolutionary political change," Zelikow wrote.It's as clear as "Bin Laden Determined To Strike in US". They know exactly what's going on and every time they stand up in public it's the opposite of reality that comes out of their mouths. Read it all here.
The insurgency was "being contained militarily," but it was "quite active," leaving Iraqi civilians feeling "very insecure," Zelikow said.
U.S. officials seemed locked down in the fortified Green Zone. "Mobility of coalition officials is extremely limited, and productive government activity is constrained."
