A war in search of a rationale

The recent publications of memoirs by former Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet and former Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith have reopened the debate over the origins of the Iraq War. Both men—who were widely blamed for the ‘intelligence failure’ on weapons of mass destruction and the exaggerated connection between Al-Qaeda and Iraq—purport to set the record straight about what really happened inside the Bush administration during the run-up to the war. Yet, both men have actually produced books marked by a strange combination of self-pity and disingenuousness. This article looks at their attempts at self-justification in light of the growing evidence that the decision to invade was made in mid-2002; if true, their arguments that they were participating in a genuine policy debate rather than a search for a rationale become problematic. Rather than exculpating themselves, their memoirs instead serve as damning indictments of both men, showing how Tenet and Feith enabled the President's decision to wage war on Iraq as a matter of choice rather than necessity.