This is my "read Juan Cole" post of the day. Cole has a good summary of the intelligence problems that produced the blatantly wrong estimates of Iraqi WMDs that Bush and Blair wound up being used to justify invasion and war: Kay, Powell, Backtrack on WMD (01/26/04):
But Bush and his officials were the real problem. They were determined to go to war regardless of the intelligence. Neoconservatives in the Pentagon and the Rockingham Group in the British military cherry-picked and politicized vague "intelligence" (i.e. unsupported anecdotes) fed to them by figures like corrupt expatriate Iraqi businessman Ahmad Chalabi and very likely Israeli intelligence. The groups that wanted the war, wanted it so badly that the shakiness of the "intelligence" did not matter. The intelligence was just spun.
And Juan Cole on one of the results of the US-British liberation of Iraq: Iraqi Women's Rights Imperiled (01/27/04):
Sarah el Deeb of the Associated Press explores the implications for Iraqi women of the US tendency to appoint men to high office, to exclude women, and to bow to vocal patriarchalists whenever challenged. Western commentators, including George W. Bush, who think women's rights have actually improved in Iraq since the war, have no idea what they are talking about. The attempt of some powerful male members of the Interim Governing Council to impose religious personal status law on Iraqi women still hangs in the balance.
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