General Accuses Bush Officials of "Deception"
On October 13, Thomas Ricks, writing for Foreign Policy, quoted former Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Hugh Shelton from his book Without Hesitation: The Odyssey of an American Warrior:
President Bush and his team got us enmeshed in Iraq based on extraordinarily poor intelligence and a series of lies purporting that we had to protect American from Saddam's evil empire because it posed such a threat to our national security. (474-475)
Spinning the possible possession of WMDs as a threat to the United States in the way they did is, in my opinion, tantamount to intentionally deceiving the American people. (488)
In the words of Vincent Bugliosi, "what then?" Will General Shelton call on Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint an independent counsel to investigate senior Bush officials for these alleged crimes?
Every American citizen at this point has access to enough evidence to substantiate allegations of a deliberate effort to deceive members of Congress into authorizing military force against Iraq. The only thing lacking is an Attorney General with the moral courage to do what is right no matter how many of President Obama's political opponents or fellow party members pressure him not to. Everyone who has worn the uniform or seen a family member off to war deserves to know the truth about how and why we got into Iraq.
