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Home »" Rapid Response Weblogs *" Capital Games Is Bush's War in Iraq A "Brain Fart"?

Washington—a
Capital Games by DAVID CORN city of denials,
spin, and political
calculations. They
may speak
Is Bmh's War in Iraq A "Brain Fart"? English there, but
09/26/2003 @ 4:50pm
most citizens still
E-mail this Post need an
interpreter to undei
ways and meanings
Did retired General Anthony Zinni really call George W. Bush's war in Iraq a "brain the Washington edi
fart"? That seems to be the case. But first, some background. Nation magazine, h
years analyzing the
pursuing the lies th
On Thursday night, Zinni, the former commander of the U.S. Central Command, of the nation's capit
was interviewed by Ted Koppel on Nightline. And he was rather sharp in his novelist, biographei
television and radio
assessment of George W. Bush's policy in Iraq. Before the war, Zinni, who had been
commentator who i
an envoy for Bush in the Middle East, opposed a U.S. invasion of Iraq, arguing that decipher and scrutii
Saddam Hussein did not pose an imminent threat. On Nightline, Zinni compared Washington.
Bush's push for the war with the Gulf of Tonkin incident—an infamous episode in
In his dispatches, h
which President Lyndon Johnson misrepresented an attack on two U.S. Navy
the day-by-day poli
destroyers in order to win congressional approval of the war in Vietnam—and he policy battles under
challenged "the credibility behind" Bush's prewar assertions concerning Iraq's Capitol, the White r
think tanks, and th<
possession of weapons of mass destruction and its association with anti-American
studios. With an inf
terrorists. "I'm suggesting," Zinni said, "that either the [prewar] intelligence was so unconventional per:
bad and flawed—and if that's the case, then somebody's head ought to roll for that— holds the politicians
policymakers and p
or the intelligence was exaggerated or twisted in a way to make a more convenient
accountable and rei
case to the American people." Zinni said he believed that Hussein had maintained important facts and
"the framework for a weapons of mass destruction program that could be quickly go uncovered elsew
activated once sanctions were lifted" and that such a program, while worrisome, did
Watch for David Co
not immediately endanger the United States.
forthcoming The Lit
W. Bush: Mastering
Zinni raised the issue that Bush might have purposefully misled the public and not of Deception, due o
shared with it the true reason for the war: "If there's a strategic decision for taking Crown Publishers tr
September.
down Iraq, if it's the so-called neoconservative idea that taking apart Iraq and
creating a model democracy, or whatever it is, will change the equation in the
Middle East, then make the [public] case based on that strategic decision....! think register fur
it's a flawed--like the domino theory—it's a flawed strategic thought or
concept....But if that's the reason for going in, that's the case the American people

http://www.thenation.com/capitalgames/index.mhtml?bid=3&pid=977 9/30/03
 THE SHOCK OF THE NEW
331

acknowledgment was made of the previous administration's determina-

tion, announced fifteen months earlier, that unnamed senior Iranian offi-
cials were under investigation for their roles in the killing of Americans at
Khobar Towers. The occasion for these remarks was the removal of Hani
el-Sayegh, the suspected Khobar conspirator, to Saudi Arabia. In making
the announcement, Attorney General Janet Reno said that the United
States had not determined whether the bombing was carried out at the
instigation of the Iranian government.3 The United States decided to
comply with a Saudi request for custody of the suspect, because once
el-Sayegh reneged on his plea agreement, the Justice Department did not
have enough evidence to try him. (Powell's only reference to Afghanistan
deplored their treatment of women.)
The administration's early posture vis-a-vis Iran must have come as a
shock to Louis Freeh, who, Elsa Walsh wrote in The New Yorker, was still
focused so intently on the Khobar case that he "poured [into it] not only
enormous investigative resources but also soul." According to Walsh,
Freeh did not believe that President Clinton would make the hard deci-
sion to indict Iranian officials for the Khobar bombing; therefore he
decided to wait for the next administration to press ahead with the case
and, presumably, make those indictments. (Freeh was evidently not trou-
bled by the position of the Justice Department attorneys in the case, f
who felt they had no admissible evidence to use for such charges.) Freeh
announced that he would retire in June, saying that Khobar was his "only .
unfinished piece of business."4 After the New Yorker article appeared,
Freeh was summoned to Condoleezza Rice's West Wing office. The buzz
in thecorridors ot the Did Executive Office Building was that he was
given a tongue-lashing, the essence of whichwas that the FBI director did
p'Hrnab' frmgri j" l ll-'y"
On June 22,2001, a few days before the fifth anniversary of the bomb-
ing of Khobar Towers, the Justice Department announced the indictment
of thirteen Saudis and one unidentified Lebanese. The charges contained
references to unnamed Iranian officials who were said to have assisted
Saudi Hezbollah, although they were not indicted. Attorney General