TomDispatch.com has the second installment of this well written and incisive article. Both parts do an great job of tying up a lot of loose ends, but, like the books I've been reading about this war, it also raises more questions than it answers; and it fails to answer the core questions raised in almost all of the books.

The Iraq War, why we did it and why we did it the way we did it, has always seemed like a giant puzzle wrapped in an even greater enigma. Each book, Cobra II, Fiasco, Assassin's Gate, Imperial Life in the Emerald City, The One Percent Solution, State of Denial, etc., has provided pieces to the puzzle and clues to try to identify those pieces still missing. None has provided the complete answer and this article is no different. It is an excellent point for moving forward as it ties so much together.

First, to those who say "So what. The real issue is where do we go from here." My answer is that I don't think a way out can be found without understanding how we got in, how we created a fiasco, and who's responsible. The misunderstanding that led to the current Gordian Knot will likely provide tools for untangling it. The one's responsible for this mess are likely still making decisions and need to weeded out, or at least their thinking needs to be weeded out.

Second, the essay is abviously meant to condense the books outlined at the end of the article, mostly State of Denial, since the author relies so heavily on its text. The author does a good job of deflecting Woodward's premise that Rumsfeld was the bad guy here. He was a bad guy, so to speek, but he wasn't THE bad guy. This was a committee, with someone else at its head.

I'm not convinced George Bush is the real desk upon which the buck stopped, though. What looms large, by his absence throughout both part one and part two is Dick Cheney. A man who creates his own shadow intelligence agency on Iraq, who personally visits the CIA to drum up intelligence for the invasion, who takes a major role in rallying support for the war in the media, a man, more than Rumsfeld, who had extensive experience, contacts, and interests in the Middle East, particularly its oil, seems remarbably invisible here. If Rumsfeld wore rubber gloves, Cheney walked through this in an invisible suit.

I agree with the author's analysis, that the Pentagon's phase 2, was "insert Chalabi and the exiled congress." What I don't agree with is, how that plan got derailed and what replaced it. Did Rumsfeld (and Cheney?) pitch a quiet fit at not getting their way and just sat back letting Bremer call the shots and make his own mess? Did State, Pentagon or the Admin suddenly scramble for a plan B only to be too little, too late? Did someone or some group of someone's decide that, without the successful implementation of the "Chalabi" plan, the next best thing was to create anarchy?

Also, I'm not convinced that the goals outlined in Bletchly II were the sole reasons and goals for entering Iraq. Plans for something as monumental as invading a foreign country usually have both the idealistic and strategic goals, but also more tactical and substantive goals. Generally they come with a myth, a power, and a value. The myth might be to make the "evildoers" quake at our strength and to establish western secular democracy. The power may have been our military might and belief in the superiority of our cause. But what was the value in all of this? Was it oil? Security? Resolving Israeli-Palestinian issue? Some combination of these? Or none of the above.

If each puzzle has a key, if each heiroglyphic has a Rosetta Stone, perhaps the answer to the question, "Why did we go in?" and "Why did it go wrong?" must be found by first answering the question: "Why did Bremer disband the Baath Party, the Interior Ministry and the Army all in one week? Who made this decision or ok'd it and why?

For all that I have read about this horrible adventure, I've yet to find the answer to that question. Hopefully the Democratic leadership is asking the same question and putting together the committe that will look for an answer to it.