Lies and incompetence uncovered

The Fitzgerald investigation has succeeded before any indictments have been issued. It has brought to light the lies, deceptions that got us into the war in Iraq. This is the subject of Bob Herbert's column in the Times today. (available at Truthout)

Much of the nation is mourning the more than 2,000 American G.I.'s lost to the war in Iraq. But some of the mindless Washington weasels who sent those brave and healthy warriors to their unnecessary doom have other things on their minds. They're scrambling about the capital, huddling frantically with lawyers, hoping that their habits of deception, which are a way of life with them, don't finally land them in a federal penitentiary.

See them sweat. The most powerful of the powerful, the men who gave the president his talking points and his marching orders, are suddenly sending out distress signals: Don't let them send me to prison on a technicality.

This is not, however, about technicalities. You can spin it any way you want, but Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation of Karl Rove, Scooter Libby et al. is ultimately about the monumentally conceived and relentlessly disseminated deceit that gave us the war that never should have happened.

So once again, as it so often is, it's not the lies that got us into war but the actions to cover up the lies that may land prominent members of the Bush administration in jail.

Although the people who lied us into the war don't know it or probably don't care, this is what war is all about.

In addition to the more than 2,000 dead, an additional 15,000 Americans have been wounded. Some of these men and women have sacrificed one, two and even three limbs. Some have been permanently blinded and others permanently paralyzed - some both. Some have been horribly burned.

For the Iraqis, the toll is beyond hideous. Perhaps 30,000 dead, of which an estimated 10 percent have been children. The number of Iraqi wounded is anybody's guess.

This is what happens in war, which is why wars should only be fought when there is utterly and absolutely no alternative.

Herbert asks, so what now?

So what's ahead, now that the giddiness in Washington has been replaced by anxiety and the public is turning against the war?

Even Richard Nixon's cronies are crawling out of the woodwork to urge the Bush gang to stop the madness. In an article for Foreign Affairs magazine, former Defense Secretary Melvin Laird, now 83, says the administration needs to come up with a clearly defined exit strategy, and fast.

Said Mr. Laird: "Getting out of a war is still dicier than getting into one, as George W. Bush can attest."

But President Bush, who never gave the country a legitimate reason for going to war, and has never offered a coherent strategy for winning the war, seems in no hurry to figure out a way to exit the war.

Soon after the Pentagon confirmed on Tuesday that the American death toll in Iraq had reached 2,000, the president gave a speech in which he said: "This war will require more sacrifice, more time and more resolve. No one should underestimate the difficulties ahead, nor should they overlook the advantages we bring to this fight."

Thousands upon thousands are suffering and dying in Iraq while, in Washington, incompetence continues its macabre marathon dance with incoherence.

The Iraqis don't want us there, 47% of those polled think it's alright to kill Americans. As I reported the other day much of the Iraqi Army we hear so much about is nothing more than a Shiite militia intent on killing all the Sunnis and:

Some Iraqi troops went a step further, saying they were only awaiting word from the marja'iya before turning on American forces.

As we know the corporate press played a big part in spreading the propaganda and it wasn't just Judy Miller. We are beginning to see that the Fitzgerald investigation is forcing them to rethink their reporting. The American people are no longer buying the lies and realize that "stay the course" is not a plan and not worth dieing for. Bush will eventually be forced to back down, not by the peaceniks and liberals but by the political realities of a country where people are no longer drinking the kool-aid or buying the lies. The Fitzgerald investigation is in part responsible for that and has done more to change public opinion that Cindy Sheehan ever could.