Karl Rove: No Iraq War, Had We But Known There Were No WMD

It seems that, one by one, the architects of the Iraq War are trying to rehabilitate their consciences. On Monday, David Knowles reported on President George W. Bush's regret over being "unprepared" for war. Now, Karl Rove is engaging in some soul-searching of his own. Hope he has a powerful flashlight and a lot of time on his hands. From HuffPo:

"In the aftermath of 9/11 the concern was about a tyrant accused of enormous human rights abuses," but who also possessed weapons of mass destruction, said Rove. "Absent that, I suspect that the administration's course of action would have been to work to find more creative ways to constrain him like in the 90s."

Oh, if only they had known the truth! Woe be to Karl Rove, victim of non-truth-knowing! What dastardly confluence of uncontrollable butterfly-wingflappery has caused this pitiable innocent to be thrust upon the scales of history's cruel judgment?


For the answer to that question, we need to look at the two basic elements of truth-knowing: wanting to know it, and listening to it when presented with it. Bonus points, also, for not making up the opposite of truth.

Rove's conclusion presupposes that they were interested in finding out the truth, rather than buttressing the case for what they already believed to be true. The fact is that the Bush administration lied about Iraq's weapons program, and cherry-picked intelligence around going to war with Iraq.

Rove's claim that they would not have gone to war if they had known the truth is also at odds with Bush's statements, as Huffpo notes:

In an interview that aired last night with ABC's Charlie Gibson, Bush declared that the greatest regret of his presidency was "the intelligence failure in Iraq." But he claimed it was "hard... to speculate" as to whether or not he would make the same decision to invade with the correct information.

Back in December 2005, however, Bush did just that, declaring the WMD issue effectively irrelevant when he said that, "knowing what I know today, I would have still made that decision."

I may part company with a significant number of Bush critics, in that I am willing to (charitably) grant that they were "true believers," that Bush really believed there were weapons. The problem, for me, isn't motivation, and it isn't even necessarily the result.

If Bush had been right, and they had found WMD, would that have made this all right? Would future presidents simply invade countries at will, hoping with each roll of the dice that their suspicions would be borne out?

We elect a president to act in America's best interest, based on the available facts, the advice and consent of Congress, and his own judgment. No matter how good it is, no man's judgment is a substitute for the facts.

Bush and Rove, et al, may yet win absolution, but it won't be on grounds that they didn't know the truth.

Tommy Christopher co-hosts "Unusable Signal" , on BlogTalkRadio Tues - Thur at 10pm, and Fri, & Sat at 11pm. Click here for the Unusable Signal homepage.