Doug Feith: "Should Have Used Better Claim to Build Case for Iraq War"

Excerpts from an AP story today....."The top policy adviser to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld says the Bush administration erred by building its public case for war against Saddam Hussein mainly on the claim that he possessed banned weapons.

The comment by Douglas J. Feith, in an interview with The Associated Press, is a rare admission of error about Iraq by a senior administration official. Feith, who is leaving after four years as the undersecretary of defense for policy....

'I don't think there is any question that we as an administration, instead of giving proper emphasis to all major elements of the rationale for war, overemphasized the WMD aspect,' he said....'It would have been better had we done a better job of communicating in all of its breadth the strategic rationale for the war,' Feith said in an hour-long interview this week...." (Read the entire AP story here.)

Uhhh....I'm stunned. Feith is admitting that the WMD story was merely a...marketing pitch? An alluring line to sell war to Congress and the American public?

They should have used a better "claim" for "building its public case" for a war that has cost the US $300 billion, 1750 US soldiers' lives, almost all its allies and most certainly, its international reputation? A war that has driven the US toward fiscal insolvency, not to mention moral bankruptcy?

So what was the true reason for war, Mr. Feith, if it wasn't the immediate and terrifying threat of WMDs to the US, as you warned Congress and the public?

So the substance of the Downing Street Memos was correct? War on Iraq was merely a Bush Administration goal looking for a sellable reason?

So it was all a....lie? YOu actually admit that WMDs were merely one more stretched claim to build a case for what the administration already wanted to do? But isn't lying to Congress a felony, Mr. Feith?