The New Republic, in a short article titled PAUL WOLFOWITZ, NOT EXACTLY COMING CLEAN, accuses the Deputy Secretary of Defense of "a classic Washington gaffe -- that is, accidentally saying what he really means." The statement they claim went too far was this one:

The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason [for invading Iraq.]

The New Republic contends this is a problem because it "implies that the administration's hawks had their man, and were groping for a crime to pin on him." Look for yourself exactly what Wolfowitz said in the article; he implies nothing of the sort. Instead, he "implies" that there were lots of good reasons to go after Saddam, but WMD, for "bureaucratic reasons" (I suspect he means political reasons, but maybe not) was the most resonant, so that's what the administration pushed. I have no problem with that sort of decision making by the administration. They had several good reasons to act, they discussed all of them with the public, but pushed the most resonant. I would feel differently if WMD was a bad reason and if they didn't discuss the other, real, reasons for the attack, but since Wolfowitz implies nothing like that, he, and the administration, are coming clean enough for me.

- posted by Tom Sawyer @ 9:38 AM