NBC News Brian Williams, reporting after a luncheon with President Bush
Notably, when asked about Robert Draper's new book, "Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush" -- a portion of which deals with the disbanding of the Iraqi Army -- the president (who indicated he has not read the book) insisted there was no Iraqi Army left to re-constitute back at that time, saying most of Saddam's former fighters had been driven to the north where they fled and dispersed. I pointed out that this seemed like a new response; for four and a half years, the disbanding of the Army has been seen as one of the chief failings of the Iraq war. The president seemed un-bothered by that perception.
Williams really is understating the importance of this. Here's a small part of the Draper book that Williams was describing:
Mr. Bush acknowledged one major failing of the early occupation of Iraq when he said of disbanding the Saddam Hussein-era military, ''The policy was to keep the army intact; didn't happen.''
But when Mr. Draper pointed out that Mr. Bush's former Iraq administrator, L. Paul Bremer III, had gone ahead and forced the army's dissolution and then asked Mr. Bush how he reacted to that, Mr. Bush said, ''Yeah, I can't remember, I'm sure I said, 'This is the policy, what happened?' '' But, he added, ''Again, Hadley's got notes on all of this stuff,'' referring to Stephen J. Hadley, his national security adviser.
Bush told Draper the policy was to keep the army in tact, but that apparently someone overruled him. Now he tells Brian Williams and others that it wasn't the policy, because the army had disappeared. The man doesn't even bother to try to keep his story straight anymore. How pathetic
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