Some years ago Nation patriarch Victor Navasky and his sometime collaborator in mischief Chris Cerf published The Experts Speak: The Definitive Guide to Authoritative Misinformation, a sort of Guinness Book of World Records of experts who were wrong in every field.

Now the duo is back and have embarked on a sequel — experts who were wrong about Iraq. They’re interested in exact quotations (the shorter the better) from politicians, professors, pundits, the military, whomever and they’ve asked for help from Nation online readers.

Here are a few examples of what they’re looking for:

“We shall be greeted, I think, in Baghdad and Basra, with kites and boom boxes.”
Fouad Ajami, Professor of Middle East Studies at John Hopkins University in the Washington Post on the likely outcome of an American invasion of Iraq.

“I will bet you the best dinner in the Gaslight district of San Diego that military action will not last more than a week.”
Bill O’Reilly, Fox News

“Ladies and gentlemen, these are not assertions. These are facts, corroborated by many sources, some of them sources of the intelligence services of other countries.”
Colin Powell offering “proof,” before the United Nations Security Council, to back up his claims about Iraq’s possession of WMD.

As Nation readers know, this is just a very short sampling. The experts were wrong about the future, the past, and the present of Iraq. The goal of this new book is to document the errors, the arrogance and the mendacity with short, pungent quotes that speak for themselves.

Any help you can provide will be much appreciated. Please send suggested quotes to Navasky and Cerf at [email protected].