The New War

I don't have a lot to add to the debate about runup to our next war -- even hyperactive sycophant Chris Matthews is on the case this time around. So I'll just refer you to this piece I wrote, almost four years ago, about the folly of the then-impending war in Iraq.

A few notes:

• The Bush Administration did eventually cough up most of the promised money for New York City. Of course, then they turned around and declared we had no terrorist-target landmarks, and cut our antiterrorism funding. For blatantly partisan reasons, of course.

• Like most people, I took the existence of Saddam's WMDs for granted. It didn't even occur to me that our intelligence system was that badly broken and/or mismanaged.

• I was much too giving to the Administration on the matter of preparations for an attack. When I wrote the essay, I thought that was the weakest part of my argument. This was, of course, prior to the revelation of the famous Presidential Daily Briefing "Bin Laden Determined to Attack within U.S."

• My favorite reply to the column is still, "What a wiener. To his credit, he did manage to get Daredevil shipping on a regular schedule."