From almost the moment Barack Obama took the oath of office, Mitt Romney has attacked the President for showing a lack of leadership on foreign policy and "apologizing for America." Now more than ever, it's Mitt Romney who owes President Obama and the American people some apologies. Four years after declaring his full-throated support for the invasion of Iraq as "the right decision," Romney now says "of course not." As for President Obama's daring raid to kill to Osama Bin Laden, a man Mitt announced in May 2007 was "not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch," Romney contended this week that "other presidents and other candidates like myself" would have done the same thing. Just not, it turns out, the version of candidate Romney from four years ago.

On August 1, 2007, then Senator Barack Obama delivered a major speech on foreign policy. In addition to pledging to unilaterally launch strikes against Bin Laden and other high-value targets in Pakistan, Obama promised he would ramp up the U.S. effort in the under-resourced effort across the border in Afghanistan. In July 2008, Obama explained:

"The greatest threat to that security lies in the tribal regions of Pakistan, where terrorists train and insurgents strike into Afghanistan. We cannot tolerate a terrorist sanctuary, and as President, I won't. We need a stronger and sustained partnership between Afghanistan, Pakistan and NATO to secure the border, to take out terrorist camps, and to crack down on cross-border insurgents. We need more troops, more helicopters, more satellites, more Predator drones in the Afghan border region. And we must make it clear that if Pakistan cannot or will not act, we will take out high-level terrorist targets like bin Laden if we have them in our sights."

Then in an October 2008 presidential debate with John McCain, Obama declared simply. "We will kill bin Laden. We will crush al Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority."

But from the beginning, candidate Romney like the GOP's eventual nominee John McCain not only opposed but mocked Obama's approach. While McCain blasted Obama's hard line on Al Qaeda's safe havens in the tribal areas ("Will we risk the confused leadership of an inexperienced candidate who once suggested invading our ally, Pakistan?"), Romney protested:

"I do not concur in the words of Barack Obama in a plan to enter an ally of ours... I don't think those kinds of comments help in this effort to draw more friends to our effort..."There is a war being waged by terrorists of different types and nature across the world," Romney said. "We want, as a civilized world, to participate with other nations in this civilized effort to help those nations reject the extreme with them."

That might seem like an incongruous statement coming from the same Mitt Romney who just weeks ago said of our "ally"Pakistan, "We need to help bring Pakistan into the 21st century, or the 20th for that matter." It's more comical still coming from the same Mitt Romney who this week told Chuck Todd of MSNBC that he now supports the very kind of operation to take out Osama Bin Laden he once opposed:

"I think in a setting like this one where Osama bin Laden was identified to be hiding in Pakistan, that it was entirely appropriate for this president to move in and to take him out," Romney replied, later adding that "In a similar circumstance, I think other presidents and other candidates, like myself, would do exactly the same thing."

(As it turns out, it wasn't just candidate Romney who got weak at the knees at the prospect of ordering unilateral U.S. strikes in Pakistan. In 2005, President Bush did as well, cancelling a special forces operation designed to "snatch and grab" Ayman Al Zawahiri and other senior Al Qaeda leaders.)

Of course, Romney's confusion about whether to respect or not respect Pakistani sovereignty may have something to do with his past reversals about whether or not killing Osama Bin Laden even mattered:

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(Sung to the tune of "The Twelve Days of Christmas")

On the first day of Christmas
Republicans told me
Obama's born in another country.

On the second day of Christmas
Republicans told me
Gay marriage is like box turtle love and
Obama's born in another country

On the third day of Christmas
Republicans told me
Thank the one percent
Gay marriage is like box turtle love and
Obama's born in another country

On the fourth day of Christmas
Republicans told me
We don't torture
Thank the one percent
Gay marriage is like box turtle love and
Obama's born in another country

On the fifth day of Christmas
Republicans told me
Tax cuts more revenues bring
We don't torture
Thank the one percent
Gay marriage is like box turtle love and
Obama's born in another country

On the sixth day of Christmas
Republicans told me
Half the people no taxes paying
Tax cuts more revenues bring
We don't torture
Thank the one percent
Gay marriage is like box turtle love and
Obama's born in another country

On the seventh day of Christmas
Republicans told me
Government Reagan was trimming
Half the people no taxes paying
Tax cuts more revenues bring
We don't torture
Thank the one percent
Gay marriage is like box turtle love and
Obama's born in another country

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Pushing his new memoir in an interview with NBC's Matt Lauer which aired Monday, George W. Bush addressed one of the defining episodes of his presidency. Finding no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Bush claimed, left him feeling "sickened." But in 2004, as you may recall, President Bush found his Iraqi WMD fiasco side-splittingly funny.

In his NBC special, George W. Bush insisted that the absence of weapons of destruction from Saddam's arsenal stick induces feelings of nausea and fury.

LAUER: Your words. "No one was more sickened or angry than I was when we didn't find weapons of mass destruction." You still have a sickening feeling--

BUSH: I do.

LAUER: --When you think about it.

BUSH: I do.

As well it should. After all, President Bush, Condi Rice and others in the administration warned Americans about "the smoking gun that could come in the form of mushroom cloud." With that and other rationales for the Iraq conflict debunked and discredited, the staggering cost in blood (over 4,000 U.S. dead, 30,000 Americans wounded, tens of thousands of Iraqi civilian casualties), treasure and diminished U.S. influence is a national catastrophe of epic proportions.

Or, as then President Bush told the 2004 Radio and Television Correspondents Association Dinner, hilarious.

In that presentation as in so many others, Bush showed his contempt for the truth and the suffering of the American people. His tasteless (and rightly panned) slideshow made light of the lack of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Coming one year and hundreds of American dead and wounded after the invasion of Iraq, President Bush the cut-up hoped to regale the audience with his White House hijinx. As David Corn of The Nation reported:

Bush notes he spends "a lot of time on the phone listening to our European allies." Then we see a photo of him on the phone with a finger in his ear. But at one point, Bush showed a photo of himself looking for something out a window in the Oval Office, and he said, "Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere." The audience laughed. I grimaced. But that wasn't the end of it. After a few more slides, there was a shot of Bush looking under furniture in the Oval Office. "Nope," he said. "No weapons over there." More laughter. Then another picture of Bush searching in his office: "Maybe under here." Laughter again.

Whether his Iraq war was side-splitting or stomach-turning, George W. Bush told NBC's Lauer he'd do it all again. As he claimed many times before, Bush insisted, "I mean apologizing would basically say the decision was a wrong decision," adding, "I don't believe it was the wrong decision."

The American people, seeing their military overstretched, Al Qaeda emboldened, Iranian influence enhanced and U.S. prestige deeply damaged, long ago concluded otherwise. That is truly sickening. As for the legacy of George W. Bush, there's nothing funny about it.

(This piece also appears at Perrspectives.)

Seriously, why Sen. Lieberman (I-CT) still the chair of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs? I totally get his desire to be the chair of a major Senate committee - he gets to make broad, somber statements about "protecting the homeland" and holds these open meetings to ensure that the press gets to headline his concerns. But he's really not doing anything to either improve homeland security or to boost the Democratic platform (other than providing the occasional vote in cloture calls that still fail to move legislation forward).

On Wednesday, Lieberman and fellow moderate Republican Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) held a hearing titled "Nine Years After 9/11: How Can We Keep Fear Alive Confronting the Terrorist Threat to the Homeland"(also see WaPo coverage here). Featured witnesses included DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, FBI Director Robert Mueller, and NCTC Director Michael Leiter. Here's a summary of their talks:

Opening Remarks:
Sen. Lieberman: "Thank you for being here to remind the American people about Teh Terrorist Threat. So let me point out the concern over the 'home-grown' threat of 63 Americans arrested in 2009 on terrorist-related issues amidst our population of 310 million people."

Sen. Collins: "I, too, am worried about the possibility of Americans being recruited and trained to use automatic rifles and explosives against our populace. No, I didn't mean the Tea Party activists and white militia groups, only the brown people who speak with accents."

Witnesses:
Sec. Napolitano: "We're just now figuring out that terrorists do, in fact, prefer small arms and explosives to CBRN hazards. We're still paying out billions in grants to state and local agencies, because you like us to do that. And we intend to make travel on America's rails just as painful as flying."

Dir. Mueller: "Since it is the FBI's job to counter 'home-grown' terrorists as well as look out for the foreign-based terrorists, let me assure you that we are on top of things. But rest assured, we're not going to bother watching those Tea Party activists until they shoot someone."

Dir. Leiter: "There are lots of flavors of al Qaeda out there. We're watching them all, but don't blame us if another 'underwear bomber' slips through. And we're intent on retaining the Cheney doctrine on WMD terrorism - maximum focus on the lowest probability events."

I jest - a little. But I find it curious that the three witnesses want to promote this common thesis that "al-Qa‘ida, and its affiliates and allies, will attempt to conduct smaller-scale attacks targeting the Homeland but with greater frequency." Is it really a general trend, or are they projecting their fears that they might miss another "lone wolf" who flies into the United States with a bulge in his pants?

I'm going to just suggest here that the general foreign terrorist community was always focused on small-scale attacks - that 9/11 was a "black swan" and future terrorist incidents may never be repeated on that scale. Small arms and explosives remain easy to purchase and easy to master. We're FINALLY getting acknowledgment that WMD terrorism is overblown and is not in fact the future mode of attack for terrorists coming to the United States (but we're still going to spend a lot of time and money on countering WMD terrorism, just in case).

If there is an increase in frequency of attacks, maybe, just maybe that's because of a general failure in US strategic communications and the extended period of US military occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention increased "kinetic" involvement in Yemen and Somalia. These events tend to foster AQ's recruiting drive. I know that's difficult for some to believe, but I'm just putting it out there as a possibility.

Finally, note these witnesses and their organizations. Did you see any DOD officials there? Protecting the homeland from foreign terrorists is not a military-led activity. It's a law enforcement and intelligence activity. Add the State Department when you want to talk about preventing terrorist growth overseas. Let's just get past the chest-thumping and try to develop coherent government policy based on that understanding, and we'll be a whole lot better off.

I am shocked, shocked to discover that the Joint Staff's J2 (intelligence) shop told former SecDef Donald Rumsfeld in September 2002 that it had no idea whether Saddam's WMD program was actually active or had any stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons. It's quite amazing, in fact, but here is the briefing in response to the SecDef's inquiry. If you've never seen a Rumsfeld "snowflake," an example is at the very first page. From Int. Business Times:

[Maj. Gen. Glen] Shaffer [Director of Intelligence, Joint Staff] wrote on September 5, 2002 that he had been asked by Rumsfeld what the U.S. did not know in terms of percentage about Iraq's WMD program.

"We've struggled to estimate unknowns, and the attached briefing sumps up our best J2 sense," he said. J2 is an intelligence group supporting top level U.S. defense officials.

"We range from 0 % to about 75 % knowledge on various aspects of their program," he said.

The group did not know the status of any nuclear enrichment facilities, centrifuge program development, or attempts by Iraq to purchase a nuclear weapon or know with confidence about the location of any nuclear weapon-related facilities. [Iraq had technical experts but no ability to build any weapon]

"Our knowledge of the Iraqi nuclear weapons program is based largely - perhaps 90% - on analysis of imprecise intelligence," the report states.

The report said "we believe" Iraq had 7 mobile biological weapons production plants "but cannot locate them." [maybe because the CIA had misidentified hydrogen generators for artillery weather stations as "mobile bio labs."]

On chemical weapons, the U.S. could not confirm the identity of any Iraqi sites that could produce the final chemical agent. [because the production lines were cold]

"Our overall knowledge of the Iraqi CW program is primarily limited to infrastructure & doctrine. The specific agent and facility knowledge is 60 -70 percent incomplete," the report stated.

On the one hand, now we know that Rumsfeld got his "we don't know what we don't know" quote from this two-star Air Force general officer (see second slide). On the other hand, this is what I really dislike about intel weenies. They say "We assess Iraq is making significant progress in WMD programs." First of all, they base this on a near total lack of hard intel. Second, they offer no credible assessment of whether this "progress" can be translated into an actual threat or impact against US forces. Fortunately for the J2, the CheneyBush administration took the leap of faith there.

Our intel at the time consisted of five-year old second-hand reports from UN Special Commission reports and tall tales from Ahmed Chalabi's band of Iraqi outcasts. So despite the fact that there were "known unknowns," this weak analysis was still good enough for the CheneyBush administration's policy makers to justify a preventive invasion of Iraq. This was the clear proof that Iraq was "engaging in the development of weapons of mass destruction," and the basis for GWB to say in February 2003, "And our mission is clear, to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein's support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people." Way to go, Bushie!

Hat tip to Global Security Newswire.

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In her predictable Facebook pre-buttal to the President's primetime speech on Iraq Tuesday, Sarah Palin demanded that Barack Obama "admit you were wrong about the surge." But in insisting that "the more honest you are about the past, the more likely it is you will gain the support of the American people," Palin exempted President Bush - and herself - from the lies that were used to sell and perpetuate the war in Iraq. After all, the Bush administration and its Republican amen corner (including her running mate) didn't merely tell the American people about the "smoking gun in the form of a mushroom cloud," being "greeted as liberators" or an insurgency in its "last throes" (just to recall a few). Bush's defenders, including Sarah Palin herself, continue to peddle the zombie myth of Republican politics, the bogus 9/11 - Iraq connection that will never die.

In her response to a speech on health care by President Obama last September, Palin joined the long list of conservatives before her who sought to polish the Iraq turd by seamlessly connecting it to the September 11 attacks. That night, President Obama noted the inescapable truth that the $900 billion, projected 10-year cost of health care reform would be less than revenue lost to the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy or the expenditures on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. For that simple math exercise, the Quittah from Wasilla blasted the President, suggesting he betrayed both those killed on September 11 and those who sacrificed for our country since:

"Finally, President Obama delivered an offhand applause line tonight about the cost of the War on Terror. As we approach the anniversary of the September 11th attacks and honor those who died that day and those who have died since in the War on Terror, in order to secure our freedoms, we need to remember their sacrifices and not demonize them as having had too high a price tag."

Barack Obama, of course, did no such thing. But for her part, Sarah Palin helped perpetuate the Republican lie that won't die: the invasion of Iraq, part of her "War on Terror," was a necessary response to the September 11 horror, the war on Saddam part of the "price tag" to be paid to "secure our freedoms" from the Al Qaeda killers who struck 9 years ago.

Which puts Sarah Palin in the large group of Bush administration officials including Dick Cheney, Ari Fleischer, Condoleezza Rice and President Bush himself who continue to peddle the long-debunked 9/11 - Saddam link this year.

In March 2009, the former Vice President insisted to CNN"s John King that the invasion of Iraq was "absolutely the right thing to do," adding:

"I think if you hark back and look at the biggest threat we faced after 9/11, it was the idea of a rogue state or a terrorist-sponsoring state with weapons of mass destruction -- say, nukes, for example -- and providing those to terrorist organizations.

What happened in Iraq is we've eliminated that possibility."

Appearing on Fox News in June just one day after blaming Richard Clarke for his own failure to anticipate the September 11 catastrophe, Cheney pointed the finger at the CIA and the intelligence community ("they missed 9/11"). As for his own repeated past claims that an Iraqi connection to the attacks he once described as "pretty much confirmed," Cheney admitted, not so much:

"On the question of whether or not Iraq was involved in 9-11, there was never any evidence to prove that," he told the "On The Record" host in a joint interview with his daughter Liz. "There was "some reporting early on ... but that was never borne out," Cheney said. "George ... did say and did testify that there was an ongoing relationship between al-Qaeda and Iraq, but no proof that Iraq was involved in 9-11."

Cheney's latest revisionist history echoes former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who that same March insisted, "No one was arguing that Saddam Hussein somehow had something to do with 9/11."

Of course, Rice wasn't the only one in the Bush White House contending "there were ties going on between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's regime," as she insisted as late as September 2006. Echoing President Bush's farewell address in January, former press secretary Ari Fleischer made the Saddam - September 11 connection just the previous week.

Fleischer used a March 2009 appearance with Chris Matthews on MSNBC's Hardball to display his gift for fiction regarding the Iraq war and 9/11:

"After September 11th having been hit once how could we take a chance that Saddam might strike again? And that's the threat that has been removed and I think we are all safer with that threat removed."

But if Fleischer was butchering history to justify the calamity in Iraq, he was only following George W. Bush's lead.

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