As he did yesterday, Donald Trump continues to use the Iraq war as justification for, at best, ignoring, or worse, undercutting the U.S. intelligence community. Consider the following excerpt from his interview with Margaret Brennan on CBS’s Face the Nation.
I have intel people, but that doesn’t mean I have to agree. President Bush had intel people that said Saddam Hussein–in Iraq had nuclear weapons- had all sorts of weapons of mass destruction. Guess what? Those intel people didn’t know what the hell they were doing, and they got us tied up in a war that we should have never been in. And we’ve spent seven trillion dollars in the Middle East and we have lost lives–
What the denier-in-chief fails to comprehend is how this statement only affirms his unwillingness to study and understand a situation. The intel community, the dedicated men and women who do this day in and day out, got Iraq right. Just as Trump wants to ignore the advice of professional on Iran, Korea, Russia, Syria, et. al., it was the national security team led by Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz who made this exact same mistake. Go back to the report by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and its assessment of the inconsistency between fact and interpretation.
Most of the major key judgments in the Intelligence Community’s October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), Iraq’s Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction, either overstated, or were not supported by, the underlying intelligence reporting. A series of failures, particularly in analytic trade craft, led to the mischaracterization of the intelligence.
“…not supported by the underlying intelligence reporting.” In other words, there is a reason the agencies responsible for gathering and assembling intelligence are staffed by professionals. It is only when an administration, hell-bent on executing a predetermined policy objection, twists the facts to make its case we end up with a foreign policy debacle.
Now hold on to your hats. Because this is where I’m about to make the case we are less likely to be drawn into a unjustified conflict today than we were in 2003, and the departure of Jim Mattis actually helps the situation. Remember, most skepticism of a Iraqi threat vanished on February 5, 2003 when then Secretary of State Colin Powell’s presentation before the UN Security Council gave undeserved gravitas to two big lies:
- Iraq had or was building weapons of mass destruction which posed an imminent threat to its neighbors and the United States and
- there existed a connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.
Based on his past record, we believed Powell was a reliable source, incapable of being played by the neo-conservatives from whom George Bush took advice. In his book It Worked for Me, Powell acknowledges as much. “A failure will always be attached to me and my U.N. presentation. I am mad mostly at myself for not having smelled the problem. My instincts failed me.”
Which brings me to General Mattis and the Trump foreign policy cabal. Mattis helped the nation in two ways. Upon leaving office, he publicly shared his personal view Trump held a foreign policy vision contrary to 70 years of U.S. engagement with allies and adversaries. More importantly, Mattis will never become the next Colin Powell. With his departure following former national security advisor H. R. McMaster and White House chief of staff John Kelly, there is no one in Trump’s inner circle who is trusted to tell the truth. If John Bolton, Mike Pompeo or Patrick Shanahan are cast as Powell in the remake of “Fool Me Twice,” they are more likely to be nominated for a Razzie than an Oscar.
And sadly, that is the best of all possible worlds and the saving grace if Trump attempts a last minute dog wagging before release of the Mueller report. As evidenced by the Senate’s veto proof rebuke of Trump’s Syria and Afghanistan positions, even his own supporters know he represents the greatest clear and present danger to homeland security. And unlike the interpreter’s notes from his private meetings with Vladimir Putin, Trump cannot expunge the work of intelligence professionals. It will all still be there when Trump is long gone.
Not the most comforting thought, but better than nothing.
For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP