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Four months prior to the invasion of Iraq, I found out that the George W. Bush administration was selling the war to the American people based on a lie.
I was attending the 1st Marine Division birthday ball in Primm, Nevada, where a former U.S. Central Command commander, recently retired, was our guest of honor.
Prior to the festivities at a closed door meeting in a large, empty conference room with the division's officers, he shocked many of us when he said, “Marines, there is no ongoing WMD program in Iraq, but you are going to war anyway.”
He paused, and with an exasperated look on his face, said gravely, “The administration is cooking the books on the intel about WMD in Iraq.”
This was a leader who had been in charge of all U.S. military activities in the region for more than three years and had the highest of security clearances.
He let that thought hang for a moment — that the administration was cooking the books — and then continued, “But if you don't go through the Iraqi Army like a hot knife through butter, I'll disown every one of you.”
I was shocked, but not surprised.
And so when I found myself, 20 years ago, sitting at a desert base north of Kuwait City where the 1st…
