Thread by @maassp

We remember things so we don't forget them. On this day, the 16th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, we should remember the so-called experts who urged on the war. They have not withered away. They are still with us, still telling us what we should do.

Max Boot is one of them. Before the war, he wrote in the Weekly Standard, "Once we have deposed Saddam, we can impose an American-led, international regency in Baghdad, to go along with the one in Kabul." weeklystandard.com/max-boot/the-c…

Kenneth Pollack, now at the Brookings Institution, wrote a book in 2002 entitled, "The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq." amazon.com/Threatening-St…

Robert Kagan, a Brookings Institution fellow and Wash Post contributor, wrote in 2002, "Not to take on Saddam would ensure that regimes implicated in terror and developing weapons of mass destruction will be a constant--and growing--feature of our world." weeklystandard.com/robert-kagan-a…

In 2002, John Bolton was a senior arms control official in the Bush administration and said, "We are confident that Saddam Hussein has hidden weapons of mass destruction and production facilities in Iraq." He is now Trump's national security adviser. bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pr…

David Frum was the speechwriter for George W. Bush credited with coining the term "axis of evil," referring to Iraq, Iran and North Korea. He is now a staff writer for The Atlantic. theoutline.com/post/2079/thin…

Elliott Abrams was one of the earliest advocates of invading Iraq, dating from the 1990s, and an influential figure within the Bush administration when it happened. He is now Trump's special envoy on Venezuela. nytimes.com/2002/12/07/wor…

Eliot Cohen was one of the leading neocon advocates of invading Iraq, and later worked in the Bush State Department. He's now a Johns Hopkins professor and frequent contributor to The Atlantic, Foreign Affairs and other publications. foxnews.com/story/war-with…

I just want to pause to note how breathtaking it is that the so-called experts who created the greatest foreign affairs disaster in memory (at least hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Americans killed) remain at the highest echelons of the U.S. policy-making establishment.

Condoleezza Rice, national security adviser to George Bush, strongly backed the invasion and wrote a 2003 article headlined, "Why We Know Iraq Is Lying." (Iraq was not lying.) Rice is now a Stanford professor and has earned more than $100,000 per speech.
nytimes.com/2003/01/23/opi…

Tom Friedman was a New York Times columnist who supported the invasion and in its aftermath enthusiastically said it amounted to the U.S. going to Iraq with a big stick and telling Iraqis to "suck on this." Tom Friedman remains a New York Times columnist.

Richard Cohen, a Washington Post columnist, wrote a month before the invasion that Iraq had WMD and "only a fool — or possibly a Frenchman — could conclude otherwise.” He remains a Washington Post columnist. washingtonpost.com/archive/opinio…

Robert D. Kaplan, a prolific writer of foreign-policy books and articles, backed the invasion and wrote in 2002 that Iraq would be "the most logical place to relocate Middle Eastern U.S. bases in the twenty-first century." theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…

Just to be clear, this list focuses on experts, writers, and academics (some in govt. at the time, like Condi Rice) who continue to shape policy debates. It's not about politicians who supported the war, or experts who have largely faded away (Richard Perle, for instance).

William Kristol, one of the most influential neocons, spent years advocating the Iraq invasion and said in 2002 that it "could have terrifically good effects throughout the Middle East." He remains ubiquitous as an op-ed writer and TV pundit. cbsnews.com/news/kristol-b…

David Brooks, then of the Weekly Standard, derided the opponents of the Iraq invasion for being "lost somewhere in the fog of peace." He is now a columnist for the New York Times and often writes about virtues. weeklystandard.com/david-brooks/t…

Paul Wolfowitz, a leading neocon and top Pentagon official, told Congress in 2003 that Iraq could finance its own reconstruction "relatively soon." The Iraq and Afghan wars are expected to cost the U.S. more than $7 trillion. In 2005, Wolfowitz was named to head the World Bank.

It boggles the mind that the intellectual authors of the Iraq war, which has killed hundreds of thousands of people and will cost trillions of dollars in the course of time, are doing better than ever. It's an injustice to truth and memory.