It was hubris
Re “Lessons for today from the run-up to war in Iraq,” Opinion, May 22
As an Iraq war veteran who was called up to active duty from the Army Reserve in 2005, I respectfully disagree with key parts of former Rep. Jane Harman’s piece recalling the intelligence failures and her pro-war vote leading up to the 2003 invasion.
Harman says that then-Secretary of State Colin Powell’s February 2003 presentation to the United Nations, making the case against Iraq, was highly convincing, and that she has “no doubt Powell believed what he was saying.”
I do not recall being persuaded by Powell’s argument. In fact, a contemporaneous Newsweek cover story questioned many claims he made about the supposed weapons of mass destruction and alleged Iraqi connections with Al Qaeda. I also highly recommend the book “Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal and the Selling of the Iraq War,” by journalists Michael Isikoff and David Corn. They write that “even his [Powell’s] own specialists did not believe” what he claimed at the U.N., and that when he rehearsed his statements beforehand, he declared, “This is [expletive].”
Invading Iraq was a mistake, so let’s be sure we don’t make the same blunder and rush to judgment in dealing with Iran.
John D. Wagner, Altadena