Through Washington’s Iraq debate of 2002, the recurring line from the Iraq-hawks and the right was the claim that the bureaucrats at the State Department were doing everything they could to keep democracy from coming to Iraq. It was ridiculous at the time. And looking back at it now it produces mainly confusion as you try to figure out whether to laugh or to cry and end up doing both.
(Actually, a bit more specificity is probably in order. It was one part valid, six parts ridiculousness, and three parts utter bad faith.)
Here’s a choice clip from a piece Lawrence Kaplan wrote this March in The New Republic (“Federal Reserve: The State Department’s anti-democracy plan for Iraq.”)
What’s more, the State Department has designated an outspoken foe of the Iraqi democracy movement from the Clinton years, NEA’s Thomas Warrick, as its chief “vetter” of Iraqi officials. At a gathering of Iraqi democrats in December, Warrick, along with the CIA’s Ben Miller, stood in the doorway of the meeting and literally tried to block leading pro-democracy dissidents from entering. INC representative Entifadh Qanbar, who was himself prevented from getting through the door, recounts, “Warrick said, ‘You can’t get in, and I’ll have the guards help you out.'”
As a reader who reminded me of this passage aptly said, the INC’s main probelm with the folks at the State Department and their Future of Iraq Project was that it stood in the way of their ability to take over Iraq in the wake of the American invasion — a prize they were presumably entitled to on the basis of good media and think-tank contacts in Washington.
My God did Chalabi’s crew play this town like a fiddle …
