The Neocons Knew

An extra-insightful letter to the editor in today’s New York Times deserves attention ...

To the Editor:

Re "The Decider Sticks With the Derider" (column, April 19):

There's a conundrum hidden within Maureen Dowd's column about the failure of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. It's one I've been puzzling over since the Bush administration began its drumbeat for war in Iraq.

There is now considerable evidence — from Richard A. Clarke, the former counterterrorism adviser, former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and other former members of the administration — to support Ms. Dowd's statement that Mr. Rumsfeld "wanted to invade Iraq because he thought it would be easy."

But if Mr. Rumsfeld and his colleagues truly believed that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, how easy could the invasion be?

Common sense suggests only one answer: We invaded Iraq not because we thought Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, but because we thought he didn't.

The administration would like us to think that it was simply mistaken about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein; but that's yet another lie, and perhaps the biggest one of all.

Jack Lechner

New York, April 19, 2006

The writer was an executive producer of "The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons From the Life of Robert S. McNamara."

Common sense. I’ll leave it at that.