The Iraqi saga is a horror-eyed bristle of lies.
In the run-up to the invasion, all kinds of fear-mongering lies created a sense of urgency, which quickly evaporated when those woeful tales of woe were shot-to-bits by reality.
We’re familiar with George Jr. and Dick Cheney’s intentional falsehoods — “deliberately painting a picture to the American people that you know is not fully accurate” — but what about others involved in the criminal and immoral enterprise.

Today in the UK’s Sunday Telegraph:

Tony Blair, the former prime minister, misled MPs and the public throughout 2002 when he claimed that Britain’s objective was “disarmament, not regime change” and that there had been no planning for military action.
In fact, British military planning for a full invasion and regime change began in February 2002.
The need to conceal this from Parliament and all but “very small numbers” of officials “constrained” the planning process.
The result was a “rushed”operation “lacking in coherence and resources” which caused “significant risk” to troops and “critical failure” in the post-war period.
Operations were so under-resourced that some troops went into action with only five bullets each.
Others had to deploy to war on civilian airlines, taking their equipment as hand luggage.
Some troops had weapons confiscated by airport security.
Commanders reported that the Army’s main radio system “tended to drop out at around noon each day because of the heat.”
One described the supply chain as “absolutely appalling,” saying: “I know for a fact that there was one container full of skis in the desert.”
…
The leaked documents bring into question statements that Mr Blair made to Parliament in the build up to the invasion.
On July 16 2002, amid growing media speculation about Britain’s future role in Iraq, Mr Blair was asked: “Are we then preparing for possible military action in Iraq?”
He replied: “No.”

Twisted-Tony Blair just lied through his ass.

In the pile of leaked documents to the Telegraph — classified verbatim transcripts, reports and papers — was the actual situation of the British forces: The analysis of the war phase describes it as a “significant military success” but one achieved against a “third-rate army.” It identifies a long list of “significant” weaknesses and notes: “A more capable enemy would probably have punished these shortcomings severely.”

Reminds one of Donald Rumfeld’s reply to all those young US boots-on-the-ground who were getting killed or blown apart by inadequate military equipment: “As you know, you go to war with the Army you have. They’re not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time.”
He added: “If you think about it, you can have all the armor in the world on a tank and a tank can be blown up.”

Pity the heartless lie.
And one does wonder if any of these lying bastards on both sides of the pond will ever pay the piper for creating a horror story for the ages.