Congratulate Us, We're The Biggest Fuckups Ever

Reviewing Doug E. Feith's recent tome in the War Street Journal, Bret Stephens unveils the neocon war criminals' latest defense -- We meant to do that:

In October 2002, a memorandum outlining the worst-case scenarios for postwar Iraq was circulated among the top members of the Bush administration. Among its 30 or so warnings were the following:

- "US could fail to find WMD on the ground."

- "Post-Saddam stabilization and reconstruction efforts by the United States could take not two to four years, but eight to ten years."

- "The United States could become so absorbed in its Iraq effort that we pay inadequate attention to other serious problems -- including other proliferation and terrorism problems."

- "Syria and Iran could help our enemies in Iraq. . . . Iraq could experience ethnic strife among Kurds, Sunnis, and Shia."

The provenance of this remarkable memo? If you guessed the State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency or anyone else who today might claim to have been unhappy with the administration's drift toward war, you guessed wrong. Rather, the memo was the handiwork of former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who drafted it with the assistance of his key military and civilian advisers.

That Rummy, such a genius. Not only could he imagine the worst case scenario, he and his neocon cronies could implement it to a T.

And surpass even his wildest imaginings -- tenfold.

No one tell Bret, though. He thinks it proves something else.