So you only go to war as a last resort, eh?

George "All Hat No Cattle" Bush has told us repeatedly, particularly after the release of the Downing Street Memos, (which he called "ridiculous") that he did everything he could to avoid going to war in Iraq, and that it was absolutely the last resort. If that's so, Dear MisLeader™, then why did you authorize the formation of a paramilitary group inside of Iraq a full year before the "war" began?

Before the war in Iraq began, the CIA recruited and trained an Iraqi paramilitary group, code-named the Scorpions, to foment rebellion, conduct sabotage, and help CIA paramilitaries who entered Baghdad and other cities target buildings and individuals, according to three current and former intelligence officials with knowledge of the unit.

The CIA spent millions of dollars on the Scorpions, whose existence has not been previously disclosed, even giving them former Soviet Hind helicopters. But most of the unit's prewar missions -- spray-painting graffiti on walls; cutting electricity; "sowing confusion," as one said -- were delayed or canceled because of poor training or planning, said officials briefed on the unit. The speed of the invasion negated the need for most of their missions, others said.

Imagine that. "Poor training or planning" being involved, considering the genius types who cooked up this war. My, my, my. Personally, I thought the Scorpions were just a mediocre heavy metal band from the 80's, but what do I know?

Back to the meat of the issue:

Authorized by a presidential finding signed by President Bush in February or March 2002, the Scorpions were part of a policy of "regime change" in Iraq. The covert members, many of whom were exiles recruited by the Kurds, were trained in target identification, explosives and small arms at two secret bases in Jordan, according to one U.S. government official.

Our good buddy Dubya and his dear friend Tony stood up in front of the Washington press corps a few months ago, stared straight into the cameras, and told the world that there was never any secret decision to go to war in Iraq before Bush went before Congress to ask for permission to invade. The whole idea was "ridiculous", you may recall the President saying. But strangely, a full year before that we seem to have had CIA units and their paramilitary goon squads in Iraq's capital laying out targets and working towards "regime change". (Which was clearly NOT our policy at the time, if you listen to Bush and his cronies. We were just responding to the clear threat of Saddam's WMDs. Remember that?)

This week the American death toll in Bush's grand misadventure rocketed past 1,800 with twenty-five dying in the last ten days alone. Not a damned one of those men and women had to die. The war was, and remains today, an illegal, immoral scheme cooked up by a lying madman. I hope John Conyers will add this to his list of things to look into.

Here's a second article in the Post by Josh White which provides some truly horrific details of how the Scorpions were used by the CIA to "do the dirty work" during some interrogations. I'm not even going to paste any of it in here because it is, quite frankly, offensive. Follow the link at your own risk.