{"id":136,"date":"2003-11-06T04:21:42","date_gmt":"2003-11-06T09:21:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wordpress\/2003\/11\/fact_stranger_than_fiction\/"},"modified":"2003-11-06T04:21:42","modified_gmt":"2003-11-06T09:21:42","slug":"fact_stranger_than_fiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/2003\/11\/fact_stranger_than_fiction\/","title":{"rendered":"Fact: Stranger Than Fiction"},"content":{"rendered":"

When blogging, I don’t deliberately set out to harp on Iraq all the time. But some of the stuff I read these days is almost surreal.
\nRemember how in the build-up to war President Bush played the part of the reluctant warrior? As he described it, war was being thrust upon us by Saddam. Combat was the “last option<\/a>.”
\nWell, maybe not. A new report<\/a> claims that representatives from Iraq made a last-minute offer to resolve the standoff peacefully. But a high administration official ordered Defense Policy Advisory Board Chair Richard Perle not to negotiate a deal:<\/p>\n

“Although I was not enthusiastic about the offer, I was willing to meet with the Iraqis,” Perle told ABCNEWS. “The United States government told me not to.” Perle would not disclose which official or arm of the government rejected the talks.
\n. . .
\n[Lebanese-American businessman Imad Hage] said the United States missed a chance to avert war. “It seemed to me there was a genuine offer that was on the table and somebody should have talked, at least talked.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

During this same time period Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld observed:<\/p>\n

“The American people can take comfort in knowing that their country has done everything humanly possible to avoid war and to secure Iraq’s peaceful disarmament.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Right.
\nMeanwhile, via Billmon<\/a> comes this bizarre nugget. Marine Corps General Peter Pace, vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, contends the administration delayed planning for post-war Iraq because it was concerned such planning would lead to conflict<\/a>:<\/p>\n

‘We did not want to have planning for the post war make the war inevitable. We did not want to do anything that would prejudge or somehow preordain that there was definitely going to be a war,” he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Huh? Apparently our months-long build up of 100,000 troops and supplies in Kuwait was an ambiguous move. But had we assembled an adequate post-war plan, now that<\/i> would have tipped the Iraq government off. Yeah.
\nFor a serious treatment of the situation in Iraq, as opposed to the administration’s happy talk, see Senator John McCain’s speech at the Council on Foreign Relations<\/a> yesterday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When blogging, I don’t deliberately set out to harp on Iraq all the time. But some of the stuff I read these days is almost surreal. Remember how in the build-up to war President Bush played the part of the reluctant warrior? As he described it, war was being thrust upon us by Saddam. Combat […]<\/p>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-136","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"h-entry","8":"hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}