In all the hullabaloo this week about Bob Woodward’s new book, “Obama’s Wars,” seemingly no one took notice of the big lies that led to that horrible, incoherent inheritance.

According to documents released yesterday by the National Security Archive, in January 2001, in one of the first meetings of George Jr.’s administration, the newly-minted, nit-wit president directed the Pentagon to look into military options for Iraq and the CIA to improve intelligence on the country.

And the rest, so sorry to say, is some very ugly history.

(Illustration found here).

Of course, to anyone paying any kind of half-assed attention the past decade, this little bit of info is not any kind of a new revelation — Paul O’Neill, George Jr.’s first Treasury Secretary, revealed nearly six years ago: “From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go,” says O’Neill, who adds that going after Saddam was topic “A” 10 days after the inauguration – eight months before Sept. 11.
“From the very first instance, it was about Iraq. It was about what we can do to change this regime,” says Suskind. “Day one, these things were laid and sealed.”

And from the National Archive, another official bit of old news: In November 2001, as Osama bin Laden was allowed to escape from the Tora Bora mountains in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ordered Gen. Tommy Franks to draw up Iraqi invasion plans, and, in softening the reason, “Focus on WMD.”
In a Raw Story piece on the archive documents:

Forecasting an optimistic outcome far from the result the Iraq war produced, Rumsfeld said that Washington’s image in the region and the world would benefit from toppling Saddam.
“If Saddam’s regime were ousted, we would have a much-improved position in the region and elsewhere,” he wrote.
“A major success in Iraq would enhance US credibility and influence throughout the region.”

Another Rumsfeld known unknown.

In Woodward’s book, Obama is pictured as overseeing a conflicted discussion on what to do about the shit storm that is Afghanistan.
From the Washington Post:

“This needs to be a plan about how we’re going to hand it off and get out of Afghanistan,” Obama is quoted as telling White House aides as he laid out his reasons for adding 30,000 troops in a short-term escalation. “Everything we’re doing has to be focused on how we’re going to get to the point where we can reduce our footprint.
It’s in our national security interest.
There cannot be any wiggle room.”

From all the reviews and news stories on Woodward’s tome, it appears Obama faces a horrible legacy in the form of some real-shithead/asshole military — a left-over from Rumsfeld and The Dick.
And there’s no movement here:

Woodward quotes Petraeus as saying, “You have to recognize also that I don’t think you win this war. I think you keep fighting. It’s a little bit like Iraq, actually. . . . Yes, there has been enormous progress in Iraq. But there are still horrific attacks in Iraq, and you have to stay vigilant. You have to stay after it. This is the kind of fight we’re in for the rest of our lives and probably our kids’ lives.”

Thank-you, George-ass-Jr. for creating a requirement for so much damage repair and really, no wiggle room.