We've just posted a piece over at E&P that looks back at any article we ran exactly five years ago by Ari Berman, then an intern with us. He studied the prewar polls which showed that most Americans, when we went to war, believed Saddam helped plan 9/11 or that Iraqi hijackers were part of it -- and that WMD had already been found in Iraq in recent weeks. Here is link:
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003729354
3 comments:
As much as the administration lied to the American people, I don't think the press is to blame for our stupidity. There was more than enough published information for us to come to the conclusion that an Iraq invasion would be "the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time," even in the main-stream press (except for Fox.) Many of us, in fact, came to that conclusion - even some of us who supported the "police action," in Afghanistan. I think the public (and our elected officials) had, and have, a natural pre-disposition to war, and shifted into, "don't confuse me with facts, my mind's made up," mode. And Dick Cheney's obscene "So what," was his mind set 5 years ago, as much as it is today. Argh!
The miserable failings of the MSM, an administration that actively arranged facts and fueled fears, and an inexcusably ignorant public incapable both then and now of even locating Iraq on a map all played a part in getting us into what is probably the worst blunder in American history.
Having read a biography of Saddam prior to the invasion, I knew that the last thing in the world that he would do is conspire with religious terrorists, particularly in an attack against the world's only superpower. The reason is simple; he and other Baath party members were secular socialists. Iraq was one of the few Arab countries not governed by a Muslim theocracy.
Furthermore, since Iraq had been humiliated and weakened by the First Gulf and a decade of sanctions, the notion that Saddam would suddenly enable or mastermind an attack on the U.S. and risk horrific retaliation is ludicrous. He wasn't that stupid.
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