Pro-war think tank: Iraq war made us less safe

The UK paper The Independent reported on an assessment issued by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). The paper noted The IISS dossier on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, published on 9 September 2002... was immediately seized on by Bush and Blair administrations as providing "proof" that Saddam was just months away from launching a chemical and biological, or even a nuclear attack. Large parts of the IISS document were subsequently recycled in the now notorious Downing Street dossier, published with a foreword by the Prime Minister, the following week... However, unlike No 10 [the British prime minister's office], the IISS admits that it made mistakes in its dossier about the extent of the Iraqi threat, and has commissioned an independent assessment by Rolf Ekeus, a former head of United Nations arms inspectors in Iraq.

The new assessment concluded that the Iraq occupation has proven to be "a potent global recruitment pretext" for al-Qaeda. The editor of the survey opined, "Invading Iraq damaged the war on terror, there is no doubt about that. It has strengthened rather than weakened al-Qa'ida."

Dr John Chipman, a former NATO who presented the original IISS WMD dossier, observed, "The US is realising the awful truth that the first law of peacekeeping is the same as the first law of forensics: 'Every contact leaves a trace.' Unfortunately, too many bad traces have been left recently, and many good ones will be needed to recover its reputation, prestige and effective power."

Many of us were critical before the war that the administration's plans were naively premised on a series of best-case scenarios. Those of us that pointed out that invasion and occupation would inevitably stir up an intricate series of emotions like pride and nationalism were told that we were somehow being contemptful of Iraqis' capacity for democracy and saying they didn't deserve (and this last part was always said breathlessly) freedom.

The people who planned the war were willfully blind to the complexities that invasion and occupation were always likely to provoke. And both American taxpayers and American soldiers are now paying the price for this arrogance.

The costs: hundreds of billions of dollars, hundreds of dead Americans, much of America's prestige and moral leadership, lots of Iraqi civilian casualties.

The result, according to a pro-war think tank: we are less safe than before.

Thank you Mr. President.