Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall: March 14, 2004 – March 20, 2004 Archives:
The top counter-terrorism advisor, Clarke was briefing the highest government officials, including President Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, in the aftermath of 9/11. “Rumsfeld was saying we needed to bomb Iraq….We all said, ‘but no, no. Al Qaeda is in Afghanistan,” recounts Clarke, “and Rumsfeld said, ‘There aren’t any good targets in Afghanistan and there are lots of good targets in Iraq.’
I recommend this book, especially the section on Vietnam: somehow that quote from Rumsfeld calls up the way strategic decisions were made in that war, far away from the theater, by people with no knowledge of it, who felt they could do it all from satellite images, old maps, and possibly flawed intelligence.