I WANT TO KNOW WHO?

Michael Ignatieff writes in the NYT Sunday Magazine that:

"...many of those who correctly anticipated catastrophe did so not by exercising judgment but by indulging in ideology. They opposed the invasion because they believed the president was only after the oil or because they believed America is always and in every situation wrong."

As I wrote in the title, I'd like to know exactly who Ignatieff is referring to and why he bothers with this trivia when the ideological errors of this Administration are enormous, from tax cuts to stem cell research to Iraq.

The people I know of who publicly spoke against the invasion were not blinded by foolish ideology and here I am referring to people like Gen. Zinni and Brent Scowcroft.

Thomas Ricks points out that there were many professionals who had doubts about Fredo's plan for Iraq and the Middle East. He notes (p. 64) that Michael O'Hanlon warned in October, 2002, that we would have to maintain a sizable military presence, "five to ten years, at a minimum." (At the same meeting, Richard Perle dismissed O'Hanlon's concerns.) Similarly, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) held a 3 day seminar that same October and several experts who attended warned about the excessive optimism of the criminal Bush regime.

Patrick Clawson, WINEP deputy director, warned that "If we try to transform Iraq into a democracy, we will need more and more troops over time because we will have to quell nationalistic revolts."

Alina Romanowski, a former DOD official and on the staff of the National Defense University, noted that "The U.S. military will be stepping into a morass. Iraq presents as unpromising a breeding ground for democracy as any in the world. It has never really known democracy or even legitimate, centralized rule for any great duration." She also noted that "a small U.S. force sufficient to bring about Saddam's demise might not be sufficient to stop the subsequent bloodletting."

Amatzia Bahram, a Univ. of Haifa expert on Iraq and Middle Eastern history, warned that the U.S. would have to improve living conditions quickly or it will alienate the Iraqis.

(Clawson, Romanowski & Bahram from Ricks, FIASCO, p. 65)

I have noted before the work of Conrad Crane and Andrew Terrill at the Strategic Studies Institute at the Army War College on what to expect in Iraq, so I ask again, "Who is Ignatieff referring to?"