Abstract

Questions for Rice

The author comments on American politics and presents a monologue of questions he would ask Condoleezza Rice. First, why did the President say before the war there were 'stockpiles' of biological weapons in Iraq? Where did he get that from? Even the overstated National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq said only--and this was an exaggeration--that Iraq had research programs in this area. Oh, yes, I forgot, the White House said that neither you nor the President read the NIE before deciding to launch the war. Why was that? As you might have read in the papers, the NIE did contain opinions of analysts who disagreed with the conclusion that Iraq was loaded with WMDs. Were you and the President not interested in these views? And while we're at it, after the invasion you said, 'The President took the nation to war to depose a bloody tyrant who was building a weapons of mass destruction program and had weapons of mass destruction.' The Duelfer report tells us Saddam Hussein had no weapons and no active WMD programs. So, then, did the President take us to war for invalid reasons? Moving right along, can you tell us why there were no high-level Administration discussions regarding post-invasion Iraq? Why no adequate planning for the necessary economic, political, social, legal and security transitions? Wouldn't it have been your job to organize such discussions? And as the 9/11 commission noted, Richard Clarke repeatedly warned you before 9/11 that Al Qaeda seemed about to attack, and various intelligence reports said the same. Why did you do little or nothing in response?