I have a vivid, bleak memory of sitting in a hotel room in Havana, Cuba, watching CNN as Colin Powell addressed the United Nations about the deadly risk of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.<\/p>\n
Like millions of Americans, I was convinced.\u00a0 In the months after 9\/11 our elected leaders had gathered intelligence, analyzed the facts, and reached a harrowing conclusion:<\/p>\n
It would be necessary for our young men and women to fight to defend our nation on two fronts, in Afghanistan where the fight was already underway, and then in Iraq.<\/p>\n
Surely, a decision of that magnitude must have been made with the greatest gravity and deliberation, right?<\/p>\n
We know now that the case for war was far weaker that Powell and other Bush-era officials let on.\u00a0 And the effort to gather pre-war intelligence was less honest and less competent than any of us could have dreamed.<\/p>\n
Journalists like myself contributed mightily to this disaster by failing to be skeptical enough.\u00a0 Guilty as charged.<\/p>\n
Perhaps most harrowing was the dawning realization that America’s military simply wasn’t prepared to fight two land wars on the far side of the globe simultaneously.<\/p>\n
We lacked the equipment, the training and the tactics to secure a peaceful Iraq quickly.\u00a0 In the end, more than 4,000 Americans and more than 100,000 Iraqis died.<\/p>\n
Equally shattering was the realization that our political culture lacked the will to actually pay for the conflict.<\/p>\n
We literally borrowed the money to fight this war, leaving generations of Americans in debt, and few resources in reserve for caring for sounded veterans returning home.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates summed up this painful collection of facts with crushing clarity:<\/p>\n