NSC staffer goes public: How Bush Bungled The War on Terror

[troublemaker]

Pulling the thread... not much of this particular sweater left!


"A year after resigning from the National Security Council, Flynt Leverett talks about how Bush pulled U.S. special forces from the hunt for Osama in March 2002 to focus on Iraq, how the U.S. lost Syria as a source on intelligence on Al Qaeda and the role of Elliot Abrams in shaping the country's Middle East policy. We also talk to Col. Patrick Long (Ret.), former head of the Middle East section of the Defense Intelligence Agency. (includes transcript)"

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/04/02/1516227
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...AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about who specifically was pulled from Afghanistan in March, 2002, to go to Iraq?

FLYNT LEVERETT: Well, I think I have said -- others and I have talked about these people being very highly trained, highly specialized -- special forces and intelligence officers. There's not an infinite supply of those sorts of people to go around. As I said, my view is that those people were pulled prematurely from Afghanistan because the administration was determined to go to war in Iraq on a specific timetable.

AMY GOODMAN: Was there a debate within the Bush administration about pulling these forces?

FLYNT LEVERETT: At the highest levels, I don't really believe that there was. I think that the decision was taken effectively in the very beginning of 2002. Certainly by February of 2002 that the administration was going to go to war in Iraq, and it was going to happen either at the end of 2002 or, as it turned out, the beginning of the first part of 2003...

[maddezmom]

1. drip, drip, drip

everyday a tad more comes out.