We’re still more than a month away from the deadline facing the Bush-appointed commission charged with identifying the massive intelligence failures over Saddam Hussein’s weapons capabilities. The panel’s final report is due to the president on March 31.
That said, word has already leaked out that the commission is prepared to point the finger of blame directly at … no one in particular.
The White House-ordered inquiry into the intelligence failures about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction won’t blame individual officials for the errors that contributed to President Bush’s decision to start the war almost two years ago.
Instead, the nine-member commission will emphasize how the United States should deal with future threats, according to commission spokesman Laurence McQuillan.
Critics of the White House investigation say this approach is a prescription for a whitewash — avoiding accountability by failing to delve into who was behind the wrong intelligence assessments that lie at the heart of the controversy over whether the invasion of Iraq was necessary to protect the United States and whether it was worth the lives of more than 1,400 GIs and the cost to taxpayers of more than $300 billion.
And what could possibly make us think that? This is simply a case of a White House launching a war under false pretenses, then covering up the scandal through a commission that promises to hold no one responsible for the debacle. What’s so bad about that?
This is the era of accountability that Bush has ushered in. Condi Rice might have gotten the blame, but now she’s Secretary of State. George Tenet was going to get the blame, right up until he was given a Congressional Medal of Freedom. Out of suspects, Bush’s hand-picked commission seems satisfied letting the entire government off the hook. Once again, as far as the White House is concerned, the “accountability moment” passed over three months ago.
Alas, none of this comes as a terrible surprise, not just because Bush crafted the commission the way he wanted it, but because the panel is led by federal appeals court Judge Laurence Silberman, whose role in the right-wing machine is well–documented.