Even now, I find this shocking !!!

Colin Powell has a new book of "leadership parables" from his experiences as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as well as George Bush's first Secretary of State.

In it, he says unequivocally that there was never a considered debate within the White House about whether going to war with Iraq was a good idea.   He says it was never discussed in the National Security Council.   At the time, Condi Rice was head of the NSC, which is supposed to be the leading advisory body to the president on national security and foreign policy.

Powell said that, when he made his infamous United Nation's speech, war was already inevitable, that Bush had already made up his mind.

CIA Director at the time, George Tenet, supports this.  In his 2007 memoir, Tenet says "There was never a serious debate that I know of within the administration about the imminence of the Iraqi threat . . . [nor] "was there ever a significant discussion" about the possibility of containing Iraq without an invasion."

This can only mean that it was a decision largely influenced by Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and their minions -- and for their own reasons, untouched by other points of view.

I don't know what to say.   It is almost beyond comprehension, in this day and time of no-secrets media scrutiny that so few people can make a decision for our entire country with such devastating and expensive consequences, both in human life and in treasure.

At the very least, these men and women (I include Condi) should be condemned by history;  and there misuse of power should be exposed.   Instead, we get George Bush building his presidential library and Dick Cheney grooming his daughter for high political office -- and all of them profiting handsomely from the books they've written about how safe they kept us from terrorism.

Ralph