It was our hope to make this second draft of history as definitive as possible. offers a greatly expanded (if now technologically outdated) version of this timeline, one that is completely sourced to primary documents and initial news accounts. As we prepare to leave Iraq, we present that timeline to you again. Back in 2006, we attempted to strip the history of the runup to the war to its bones, to reconstruct a skeleton that we thought might be key in resolving the open questions of the Bush era. They arrive tragically late, and too often out of order. The first drafts of history are, by their nature, fragmentary. But let us not forget that it lies, inescapably, with we the American people, who, in our fear and rage over the catastrophic events of September 11, 2001, allowed ourselves to be suckered into the most audacious bait and switch of all time. It is also shared by far too many in the Fourth Estate, most notably the New York Times‘ Judith Miller.
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Nor is it limited to the intelligence operatives who sat silent as the administration cherry-picked its case for war, or with those, like Colin Powell or Hans Blix, who, in the name of loyalty or statesmanship, did not give full throat to their misgivings.
At a congressional hearing examining the march to war in Iraq, Republican congressman Walter Jones posed “a very simple question” about the administration’s manipulation of intelligence: “How could the professionals see what was happening and nobody speak out?”Ĭolonel Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s former chief of staff, responded with an equally simple answer: “The vice president.”īut the blame for Iraq does not end with Cheney, Bush, or Rumsfeld.