I know. Transparency is in itself has nominal value. Decision making is a process and as a military man you should know that. That process entails recieving information and then using that as basis of your decision.
That decision making process can be as transparent as new born baby but if the information provided or used is false then the decision so arrived very likely will be catastrophicaly wrong. Transparency can be manipulated as shown by Colin Powell. The Bush administration edited the intel that was brought to the publics attention and in doing so cheated. Nobody has been held to account in USA. Couple of 100,000 Iraqi's are dead and Iraq has turned into terrorist factory but all that does not matter. As long we can have 'transparency'.
That is like saying "I put a bullet in your head. What else wrong did I do"?
Transparant is not necessary clear, the modern political system, nothing is clear, that's why they use the word Transparant.
Another point being, how do you know Iraq is worse off now than before? By saying 100,000 iraqi dead and turn into terrorist factory, is it worse than wwhat it was before? Terrorist were there before US involvement in Iraq, let's not kid ourselves here, It was there long before US have any impact on Iraq, it was there before Iraq and US is actually allies in 1970.
You are blaming something that happens regardless on US invasion in Iraq. Would terrorist not taken over Iraq if US had not invaded? Maybe, and that is the best answer you are going to get, and if you say Saddam is going to prohibit or inhabit the terrorism activities in Iraq, then you need to know this, there are someone (a large bunch of people actually) sees Saddam as a terrorist in the first place, just because one cartel inhabit other cartel in somepart of Mexico does not make it safer, that's the same thing happen in Iraq.
I was in Iraq in 2004, I have friend that is still In Iraq, I have kept contact with many of the people I know back in Iraq, my vet (animal doctor) is mohamad from Iraq, we talk alot about it when my 3 cats need to go get the vaccine done. Before US invasion, there are no personal liberty in Iraq, there are no security in Iraq, Now, at least some part of Iraq we can see people walking around on a sunday market in the afternoon. There are many more people I personally saw, talk to and experienced say Iraq have gone better since US invasion. Of course, if you ask the people in Al Anbar or Mosul, they will give you a different answer, because war is still happening over there. And a War is going to happen with or without US involvement in Iraq during the srping of 2003.
Politics is not clearly black and white as you see, you ask 1000 people, you have 1000 different answer, and in the end, it's a damn if you do, damn if you don't situation. Is invasion in Iraq a big mistake? Maybe. Is the sitaution in Iraq can be dealt more delicately? Maybe, but in the end, is it actually matters? Or even how it happen even matter? Let's for argument sake, said Bush did lie blankly and blatanly to the public, but think about it, did US really need to lie to get involve in Iraq? Don't forget, lying is the part to try and justify the clause in Iraq, and the action is always going to be there, if not by lying, it would be by something else.
And again, as I said, US did found WMD in Iraq in 2008, they are expired but still is WMD. Would I even say US public is being lied to? I don't actually think so.
