Shifting the Blame on Iraq

Back when I used to work in the billing department of a doctor's office, where oftentimes one has to prove to a patient or an insurance company that required claims forms were sent on time, I was given a little advice by one of the other employees there, hold onto papers as proof that you have done your job so you can C.Y.A: Cover Your Ass.

The release of the Silberman-Robb Report on the use of Pre-War Intelligence (Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction Report) reminded me of this acronym, because it seems alive and well at the White House and the Pentagon. While the Silberman-Robb Report indicts the intelligence community for its "pre-war judgements," it was explicitly prevented from investigating the use of intelligence on Iraq by policymakers.

Here is a good article about this report's huge deficiency, a report seemingly engineered by the Executive Branch to put the blame for Iraq on the CIA, and, as my co-worker would put it, play a little game of C.Y.A. One has to question the value of a war that the policymakers who concocted it are unwilling to take responsibility for.