Links Resource: The Mishandling of Iraq

The following is a list of links to key news stories, essays, even a photoessay, explaining in general terms how we were misled into the war, why it's going badly, THAT it's going badly, what it's costing us, etc. My intention is that people can give the link to conservatives who are starting to second-guess the war and need more background information than they can get from the MSM to be convinced. None of it's shrill, they can read it at leisure, and hopefully it's persuasive, or at least demonstrates that we liberals (you know, like Howard Dean, or William F. Buckley) aren't merely stupid, cowardly, unthinking or unpatriotic. Use if it it's helpful.

If you think a conservative friend will respond better to a fairly moderate site called NeoProgBlog than to a rabidly partisan site called VichyDems (run by the same person, but from different halves of his brain), this might be the better link to send them; it's the same content.

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When my pro-war friends ask why I think the war was disingenuously sold to the American people, and why I think it's being mishandled, I tend to rub my eyes in disbelief; it seems so obvious to me. But then, I tend to obsess on blogs, rss feeds, news sites, etc. Thankfully for the national economy, not everyone does.

Rather than attempt piecemeal explanations, it seems like a good idea for me to assemble some key documents in one place. Below are links to some good, "overview" type documents that help explain my conclusions that the Iraq War is a solution that is far, far worse than any problem Iraq posed before the war, and that the Administration is culpable for how it handled both the runup to war and the war itself. Of course, there are many more pieces to this puzzle, but this is a good "this is a football"-type beginning.

So: Want to know why I think what I think? Click away, and please keep an open mind.

Did the Administration cook the intel? In what way? Wasn't it really the CIA's fault?

Hersh, Selective Intelligence

Downing Street Minutes

But the Senate had the same intelligence the President did, and they voted for the war!

Nonpartisan Congressional Research Service memo on Congress' relative access to intel

Is the War Really Going So Badly? Why? Why Is The Iraqi Army Taking so Long To Come Up to Speed?

William F. Buckley, U.S. Has Failed in Iraq

Fallows, Blind Into Baghdad

Fallows, Why Iraq Has No Army

The Cost of War

NEJM Caring for the Wounded, A Photoessay

$1-2 Trillion Long-Term

Secret Pentagon Study: 80% of Upper Body Fatalities Would Have Been Avoided With Better, Readily Available Armor

Army Stretched to Breaking Point

Security chief says Israel may come to miss Saddam compared to Iraq now

Let's Just Do What the Troops Want Us To, How's That?

Generals: Administration Has "Violated Fundamental Military Principles" in Iraq, Ask to Fire Rumsfeld

72% of Troops In Iraq Want to Come Home Within Year; 90% Believe War Is Retaliation for Saddam's Role in 9-11.

Bush on March 20, 2006: "I don't think we ever said... there was a direct connection between September the 11th and Saddam Hussein."

The U.S. military is conducting a propaganda campaign to magnify the role of the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq... in a way that some military intelligence officials believe may have overstated his importance and helped the Bush administration tie the war to the organization responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Originally posted: Nov. 28, 2005, and regularly updated.

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