VANITY FAIR: NEO-CONS: "WE SHOULD NOT HAVE GONE TO IRAQ"

[kpete]

Vanity Fair Exclusive: Now They Tell Us
Neo Culpa
As Iraq slips further into chaos, the war's neoconservative boosters have turned sharply on the Bush administration, charging that their grand designs have been undermined by White House incompetence. In a series of exclusive interviews, Richard Perle, Kenneth Adelman, David Frum, and others play the blame game with shocking frankness. Target No. 1: the president himself.
by David Rose VF.COM November 3, 2006

............

Perle goes so far as to say that, if he had his time over, he would not have advocated an invasion of Iraq: "I think if I had been delphic, and had seen where we are today, and people had said, 'Should we go into Iraq?,' I think now I probably would have said, 'No, let's consider other strategies for dealing with the thing that concerns us most, which is Saddam supplying weapons of mass destruction to terrorists.' … I don't say that because I no longer believe that Saddam had the capability to produce weapons of mass destruction, or that he was not in contact with terrorists. I believe those two premises were both correct. Could we have managed that threat by means other than a direct military intervention? Well, maybe we could have."

..................

Having spoken with Perle, I wonder: What do the rest of the pro-war neoconservatives think? If the much caricatured "Prince of Darkness" is now plagued with doubt, how do his comrades-in-arms feel? I am particularly interested in finding out because I interviewed many neocons before the invasion and, like many people, found much to admire in their vision of spreading democracy in the Middle East.

I expect to encounter disappointment. What I find instead is despair, and fury at the incompetence of the Bush administration the neoconservatives once saw as their brightest hope.

Michael Ledeen, American Enterprise Institute freedom scholar: "Ask yourself who the most powerful people in the White House are. They are women who are in love with the president: Laura , Condi, Harriet Miers, and Karen Hughes."


Kenneth Adelman: "The most dispiriting and awful moment of the whole administration was the day that Bush gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to George Tenet, General Tommy Franks, and Jerry Bremer—three of the most incompetent people who've ever served in such key spots. And they get the highest civilian honor a president can bestow on anyone! That was the day I checked out of this administration. It was then I thought, There's no seriousness here, these are not serious people. If he had been serious, the president would have realized that those three are each directly responsible for the disaster of Iraq."


more at:
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2006/12/neocons200612

[tblue]

1. And Lady Macbeth said, 'Out out, damn spot!'

Hey, you lay down with dogs, you get fleas.

and

It's every man for himself!

[kpete]

2. they all have blood on their hands

and WILL rot in hell...

[gratuitous]

3. Oh please

Spare me these fake confessions. These clowns were and are the true believers, and every word is just another self-indictment. They're still convinced that they've done nothing wrong, that it was just the incompetent execution by the Bush team that failed them. Every last one of them dreams of the day when they can try it again, only this time they'll get it right.

And what are the odds that their imperial dreams will pan out? About the same chance of success that by sticking a fork in an electrical outlet, I'll poop out a pill that cures cancer. Neither outcome is 100% excluded in the universe of all possible outcomes, but the likelihood of either outcome is infinitesimally small. These blood-thirsty savages should be locked up for the rest of their natural lives.

[LouisianaLiberal]

67. Well put.

The sardonic Squire Jons in Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal put it this way: "Our crusade was so dumb that only an idealist could have thought it out."

[yellowcanine]

4. Well that's rich now isn't it? Not since McNamara have the architects of a

failed war strategy so attempted to wash their hands of the mess after it was too late to affect any meaningful change in the strategy.

[americanstranger]

5. Damn. They're throwing Bush under the bus?

Gee. Hope that gets them the good cells at The Hague.

- as

[Solly Mack]

6. ad hoc poppycock

from the Bush isn't a Real Conservative Meme Promotional Committee to Distance Conservative Policy from the Conservative Chosen One

aka

The Republican Revisionists Society

[Swamp Rat]

45. I could not have stated it better!

:applause:

[Jack Rabbit]

7. Tenet and the Medal of Freedom

Tenet was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, really, for giving the White House permission to use the CIA as a fall guy for anything that didn't jive with the pre-war propaganda after the fact. That turned out to be everything.

To reprise one of my favorite quips:

George Tenet may be the first person to receive his nation's highest civilian honor by having it rammed up his ass with a shift.

[sarge43]

8. And not one mumbling word of regret or sorrow over the

death and chaos they're responsible for.

May the Furies pursue them through eternity.

[civildisoBDence]

30. "30,000, give or take..."

That was DUHbya on the number of civilian casualties, as if dead women and children were nothing more than mathematical speculation.

Newsprism

[sarge43]

34. Well, really now

They're all just commas or ellipses or whatevers in the great epic sager of our something or other.

Did I mention that I loath those creatures?

[Amonester]

43. Let's call their deaths what they are:

Murders.

[Hamlette]

9. I've always said this is the danger in blaming it on the execution of the war

it allows useful tools like these to say: hey, if Bush hadn't bungled the occupation, it would have worked! Let's try it again!

Still, some amazing admissions here.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

12. That's exactly what they're trying to do.

I highly doubt that the hardcore/intellectual neoconservatives will ever alter their ideology one bit, regardless of what reality is, or should be, telling them. They're looking for someone to blame for the failure of their ideology. They're saying that the policy, rather than the ideology, is wrong. They will not ever believe or accept that the fundamental tenets of their ideology are complete gibberish.

[Tom Joad]

27. It sure don't help when Kerry et.al. say they would have managed the war

better.
It's like saying a bank robbery was wrong because of poor planning.

[applegrove]

10. See what happens when you develop theories and don't allow

for academic debate? Those bow ties skulked around for decades in Academia and such - always so secret. As long as nobody was looking..their plans seemed fantastical to them. Then they tested them..in real time..with real 21 year olds...And it is a horror.

[Jcrowley]

11. Do not miss this interview with Norman Podhoretz

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15477.htm

It's 24 minutes worth of jaw dropping denial and fossilized fascist ideology. The interviewer really raked him over the coals and Podhoretz denied everything all the way. It was done on Nov. 1st on BBC. No US interviewer would ever be this aggressive with a neocon godfather.

[submerged99]

59. Podhoretz is clearly delusional

thanks for linking to that video.

[KittyWampus]

13. Oh, they're no plagued w/doubt. They just doing a prelude to Iran

[Disturbed]

14. The Neocons are correct in one aspect.

The Illegal Invasion was a grand success. The US/UK Occupation is a Fiasco.

Saddam's Regime was not that difficult to overthrow except for the fact that the Insurgency will not yield. That is the failure of the Busholini Regime and mainly Rumsfailed's fault.

[MUSTANG_2004]

63. It's not mainly Rumsfeld's fault

I thought from the beginning and still think that it was doomed from the start, no matter who had been Secretary of Defense. The US is not the kind of country where people will support a bloody and costly war that isn't clearly vital to our national interests.

It's interesting now that the neo-cons are not admitting the obvious, that the invasion itself was a bad idea, just that Bush did it badly.

[swag]

15. Well, surprise, surprise, surprise!

"A year from now, I'll be very surprised if there is not some grand square in Baghdad that is named after President Bush."

September 22, 2003

[Canuckistanian]

16. It was like hiring a 10-year old to do a bank heist

All they had to do was look at Shrubya and his record and say, "Um, maybe we can wait a few more years"

[robinlynne]

17. let them fight. While we unify.

[JohnyCanuck]

18. They propagandized, brainwashed and hoodwinked half the populace

into voting for an ill-informed, mentally deficient peanut brain for president, and now they're crying in their beer 'cause their golden boy has royally screwed up his assigment. Now who could possibly have seen that coming?

[NNN0LHI]

19. They are still going to be charged with War Crimes even with their sniveling n/t

[Cocoa]

20. trying to salvage some credibility

unfortunately for them, neocons are utterly identified with this war. They were shameless in their promotion of it. Piles and piles of their propaganda on the record.

[mom cat]

21. LOL! When in doubt, blame the women!

[rodeodance]

22. nothing lost from their wallets.

[angryxyouth]

66. Bingo

Let these guys empty there own treasuries and pay for their beliefs. Just don't do it in the name of this great country. Do I think there is a problem with the Baath party and the radical Islamist? I would say probably. But we have exacerbated the problem in record time. The world is more unsafe sooner than it would have been had we not started this debacle. We could have broken their banks instead of ours years ago, by developing new sources of energy. But I guess Carter was just talking out of his ass. The war on terror can only be won through intelligent diplomacy. These guys make a fortune off of the war machine. It is not in their best interests to find peaceful solutions.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

23. In an interview with Vanity Fair, right after the war began, Wolfowitz said

that they were debating what reasons they would use for going to war. They decided on WMDs.

[catzies]

41. Yes, absolutely. I remember that too.

n/t

[DeepModem Mom]

24. kick

[roamer65]

25. They're scared of war crimes trials in the Hague.

[Generic Brad]

36. They can't buy enough positive PR to prevent that

Next Tuesday is just the first step to righting all the wrongs those evil incompetents mastermined.

[Tom Joad]

26. But we SHOULD Bomb Iran....

[The Doctor.]

28. Perle is a liar.

He signed on to the PNAC.

He wanted it, now he has buyer's remorse.

Fuck him.

[Imagevision]

29. it's ok, neocons have the perfect idiot prez installed to take the hit...

[Marr]

31. No, stupid neocons- your ideas are fundamentally flawed.

Yes, the Bush Administration is inept and incompetent- but the assumptions upon which your ideology is built are garbage.

[BurtWorm]

32. That's right, Ledeen. Blame it all on women.

Never mind the mush heads who seriously thought the Bushists were "their brightest hope."

:eyes:

[nealmhughes]

33. Does losing one's powdered wig and knee breeches save one from Mme. Guillotine?

Can brushing up on the Voltaire and hiding the Rand make them suddenly "clean"?

This is the moral equivalent of someone in NY or New England who insured the slaves' lives (the payout was for the master in the event of accidental death) and yet were able to sit in their clubs and rant and rage at slavery as an institution!

What a sickening, sad, pitiable group of men and women ye neocons are...

What is worse, I'll bet they have no idea of the name of a single GI who has had a leg blown off or bled to death in Iraq...

[Warren DeMontague]

35. So who, precisely, is left that DOES support this clusterfuck?

I mean beside The obvious: Chimp-Man, Undisclosed Location, and Grimace McFuckstick.

[Klukie]

57. Don't forget....

Laura and Barney.

(Grimace McFuckstick! LOL! Thats great.)

[pinto]

37. These neo-con policy wonks expected the Bush Administration to be competent,

that's really the complaint, here, I think. They underestimated the ability - or willingness - of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and his allies in this fractured administration to execute their goals militarily. It's a truly sad era in our international relationships all around. And a deadly exercise in unrestrained Executive power, from politicizing the Pentagon, to the troop deployments, the human losses and the funneling of some trillions in our nation's tax dollars for this whole disaster. The sooner the entire cabal is gone, the better. Policy wonks and adminstration, alike.

Lock, stock and barrel.

We can do better than this and we must.

[savemefromdumbya]

38. lots of rats jumping from the sinking ship?

[Me.]

39. What A Bunch Of Lily Liveried Cowards

These "big" boys who were the toast of the beltway were the vampires for power that persisted in starting this mess. Yes, * had it on his mind, but they pushed and pushed and made the argument. Perle's proteges Chalabi and that noxious curveball were crucial to the deal. Now they're crying and whining that they are blameless. That creep Ledeen goes so far as to blame women. Yes, Harriet Miers and Laura had a huge role in implementing this war. Thank God Rummy finally decided to take that asp Condi's calls:sarcasm:

I hope they all face war crimes tribunals when all is said and done. And if I see that neocon Downing on MSNBC, one more time saying how great it's going I will scream.

The only blessing here is:
"Fearing that worse is still to come, Adelman believes that neoconservatism itself

[AnnieBW]

40. If They'd Listened To the Intelligence Services

Who told them that there were no WMDs in Iraq, they WOULDN'T HAVE GONE IN THE FIRST PLACE!!! :nuke:

[LostInAnomie]

42. They can tell their story on the way to the gallows.

Or the firing squad. I'm not picky.

[mogster]

44. Perle in 2004: 'Total war' is what we want

In an interview in Mother Jones. Have no link, but this is just political positioning meant to carry them over Nov. 7.

[never cry wolf]

53. Here's the quote

no link but I have it saved:

"If we let our vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely,
and we don't try to piece together clever diplomacy but just wage total war, our children will sing great songs about us years from now."

- Richard "Prince of Darkness" Perle (One of the PNAC founders, then Chairman of the Defense Policy Board)

[mogster]

54. It's sounds like

Something Goering might have said on one of his bad days

Add mr. Ledeen's quote:

"Creative destruction is our middle name, both within our own society and abroad.
We tear down the old order every day, from business to science, literature, art, architecture, and cinema to politics and the law.
Our enemies have always hated this whirlwind of energy and creativity, which menaces their traditions (whatever they may be) and shames them for their inability to keep pace.

Seeing America undo traditional societies, they fear us, for they do not wish to be undone. They cannot feel secure so long as we are there, for our very existence -- our existence, not our politics -- threatens their legitimacy. They must attack us in order to survive, just as we must destroy them to advance our historic mission."
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3037473

More by Ledeen:

"But to Ledeen, Iraq was just one part of a larger war. As he later told a seminar, "All this talk about first we are going to do Afghanistan, then we will do Iraq … that is entirely the wrong way to go about it." He urged Americans not to try to "piece together clever diplomatic solutions to this thing, but just wage a total war against these tyrants.""
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1371770

[Tennessee Gal]

46. Damn! Perle looks evil!

Look at that picture!

:hide:

[madmusic]

47. This is most scary!

David Frum: "I always believed as a speechwriter that if you could persuade the president to commit himself to certain words, he would feel himself committed to the ideas that underlay those words. And the big shock to me has been that although the president said the words, he just did not absorb the ideas. And that is the root of, maybe, everything."

So speechwriters control the president?

[Klukie]

58. I thought the same thing.

I always thought the speechwriters job was to portray the thoughts and ideas of the president. This whole statement by Frum is twisted on so many levels.

[madmusic]

64. The Puppeteers.

Yeah, proof the neocons were puppeteering, or trying too. As history explores this administration, this will be one very important factor.

[upi402]

48. "no seriousness here" -no shit

even I knew that and in 1999 too!

[ima_sinnic]

49. who the hell is the author, who "found much to admire in their vision

of spreading democracy in the Middle East"?

I've already commented a few times on how Perle et al can shove their stinking remorse up their arses, but what kind of short-sighted arrogant shithead would "admire" the "vision" of inflicting your own political system on an entire region? is respect for another SOVEREIGN NATION'S RIGHT to self-destiny lost on EVERYBODY? and, what kind of moron would actually believe that "spreading democracy" was even their motivation? the author is either a total dumbass or a neocon himself.

[Recursion]

50. I normally hate Liebowitz's work, but those portraits are poignant

Those photos made me look at Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Rice as human beings. That's talent.

[Disturbed]

52. ce President Cheney must be Impeached First

Vice President Cheney must be Impeached First

One of the main reasons the Bush Regime went to a war in Iraq,was because the Democratic Party was neutralized, by the belief that Cheney had the evidence, that Iraq was getting nuclear weapons. Cheney knew there were no such nuclear weapons. Cheney knew the story about Niger 'yellow cake' going to Iraq was a fraud. And yet he pushed that argument, in order to convince the Congress to to allow the war to go ahead."

Yet, now that (WMDs) in Iraq to be a fraud, those Democrats who are upset are not targetting Cheney, but going after President Bush instead. .


The immediate basis for the impeachment of VP Cheney is the obstruction of justice and coverup carried out by Cheney in the case of the leak of Valerie Plame and exposing and destroying the covert operation of Brewster Jennings, which V. Plame was in charge of. Dick Cheney, acted to cover up and obstruct justice in the search to unearth and prosecute the guilty parties.

The Plame case is not the only example of misconduct by Cheney that requires the Congress impeach him. Cheney has committed a fraud against the nation with his lies on Iraq, and also demonstrated blatant corruption in permitting the multi-billion-dollar ripoffs by his former company Halliburton. The evidence is overwhelming.


RUSSERT: The president said that Osama bin Laden was the prime suspect. Why?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: There is just a lot of evidence to link his organization, the al-Qaida organization, and he is the head of al-Qaida, to this operation. There are some ties, for example, to some of the people involved here back to the U.S.S. Cole bombing in Yemen. We're able to tell--going back now looking at relationships and the way they've operated in the past, we're quite confident that, in fact, as the president said, he is the prime suspect. That doesn't mean we know all there is to know yet. That doesn't mean there weren't others involved. As I mentioned, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad has a very close working relationship with this organization. So there may well be others. We want to continue to investigate aggressively to make sure we've wrapped up and understand fully all who were involved. But clearly, the evidence at this point takes us very much in that direction.

RUSSERT: You have no doubt that Osama bin Laden played some role in this.

VICE PRES. CHENEY: I have no doubt that he and his organization played a significant role in this.

[LTR]

51. They eat their own

Notice how these guys are always so quick to blame everyone else? Hell, the administration was loaded with those guys! And they were certainly all for invading Iraq.

Fuck 'em! Live by the sword, die by it.

Goodbye PNAC. The Republican house of cards is falling.

[nuxvomica]

55. Perle: "I think if I had been delphic" WTF?

He didn't have to be "delphic", the worthless immoral bastard! Plenty of people were telling him the war was a mistake. Perle even had debates with them and chided them for "misunderstanding" the issues and not appreciating the threat we were facing. There was no need to be "delphic". His arrogance cost lives. His arrogance was criminal.

[ForeignSpectator]

56. first thing that comes to mind...

not all xxx people are conservatives but all conservatives are xxx people.

Replace "xxx" with whatever you like : stupid, ignorant, hypocritical, lying etc

[porphyrian]

60. Fucking duh. - n/t

[Klukie]

61. The arrogance ....

of these assholes is astounding. They act as if they are playing a chess game. Their words blatently show that they have no concept of the impact of their actions. No mention of regret for the Hundreds of thousands dead due to their inept policies. Beyond disgusting.

[spanone]

62. War Criminals One and ALL.

[louis-t]

65. So now Perle is only semi-delusional?

He still believes Saddam "was in contact with terrorists", whatever that means. Unless he's talking about the meeting with Rummy.

[autorank]

68. Are these guys wierd or what!!! KR

Lets see...they cook up this crack pot idea of invading Iraw in 1998 or earlier. They send these public letters suggesting this. They shill for it non stop everywhere. Then when it happens and turns out just the way people said it would (regardless of who did the invasion), they back off and say "Oh, bad bad bad...we could have done it better." Total nonsense but it nice to see what they're really like portrayed in their very own words.

kpete brings good things to light!

[midnight]

69. I have been asked to attend a Cindy Sheehan rally with

three teens.

[bluestateboomer]

70. They figured out how to CYA

The neo cons came up with the perfect way to cover themselves when things go wrong. Just engineer an administration so incompetent that when your rosy predictions don't come true all you have to say is," It's not my fault, they screwed up." "Just ignore all our PNAC cheerleading, ignore the warmonger lies and ignore the complete lack of prudent planning for success which we foisted on the public."

I can't let them absolve themselves from blame so easily, can you?

:argh:

[cosmicdot]

71. Perle needs to be investigated for his effort to sabotage

President Clinton's Mideast efforts/foreign policy, for one.

links at the following democrats.com are broken, but the summaries say a lot

http://elandslide.org/preview.cfm?term=Richard%20Perle

"In 1996, Perle sought to undermine President Clinton's Middle East peace efforts by urging Benjamin Netanyahu to attack Iraq and other countries, to occupy Palestinian territories, and to end the peace process. In 2000, Perle was caught trying to undermine the Clinton-Barak-Arafat negotiations at Camp David."


"At the time, there were demands that Perle be prosecuted for illegally interfering with American foreign policy. Naturally, Bush's new AG John Ashcroft scrubbed the case."


"On 1-3-03, Perle and his NYC pointman Gerald Hillman met with Adnan Khashoggi (a famous figure in the Iran-contra and BCCI scandals) and Harb Saleh al-Zuhair, 'a Saudi industrialist whose family fortune includes extensive holdings in construction, electronics, and engineering companies throughout the Middle East'. Perle sought millions in investments from Khashoggi and al-Zuhair, plus lucrative contracts in Saudi Arabia, but now he's denying it for obvious reasons - it's a CRIME to use a government office for private gain. We demand a Special Prosecutor!"


his relationship to Conrad Black might yet surface

"Perle Asserts Hollinger's Conrad Black Misled Him"
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/06/business/media/06perle.html?ex=1252123200&en=5bb2e60f28eab009&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland

his mode of operation seems to be consistent - it wasn't me, it was him/them


http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_N._Perle

[othermeans]

72. Success has a thousand fathers but failure is an orphan n/t