Most Honorable Sheik,
i'll get off topic with you; you asked:
"Then what the hell happened in Iraq?! (sorry to tangent off topic, but I had to ask that one.)"
Thankfully, i have not been in the intel community for while. There are many good men working that mission, but when you politicize intelligence operations, or pressure analysts to come up with intelligence that the national command authority WANTS to see, as opposed to the truth, bad things happen.
we're under this conception that intel is a LOT of smart guys working together, when in reality, it's a bureaucracy that breeds caution and group think. They eat their mavericks. They do just enough to punch that ticket, collect that pension, and never overturn any rocks, piss anybody off, or make any enemies within the bureacracy. nuff said on that.
as far as Iraq is concerned, i'll give you a short briefing and it all ties into these two words, "force projection". Specifically, force projection into the Persian Gulf.
in 1953, we overthrew the Iranian Mossadegh, he was a socialist, we installed the Shah, who was overthrown by Shia led clerics in the late 70's, our embassy was taken, hostages etc. the price of oil quadriples.
it was at that point, national command authority HERE, in the US, realizes that to secure energy supplies into the 21st century, we need "force projection" in the oil rich Persian Gulf. That means boots and bases in that theater of operations, which we now have in 2010.
fast forward to 1989. Saddam knew, that we knew, he was massing troops on the Kuwaiti border, because he had been given classified satel recon intel during his war with Iran, so he summoned AMB. April Glaspie 4 days before the invasion of Kuwait, and asked her, if the US had any problem with Arab states resolving disputes regarding horizontal drilling, which he regarded as theft.
for her response, you can read:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_GlaspieShe basically said "we dont care", which that idiot dictator took to be a wink and nod to invade, so he signed his death warrant 4 days later.
on 12 Sep 2001, Secty Rumsfeld was already making notes to link Iraq with the attacks, sort of a kill two birds with one stone deal.
here's a link to a very good "Frontline" one can view online, "Bush's War", pay particular attention to part two, watch for a man, a good man, General Garner, who was to take over, but had his knees cut off and was replaced by Paul Bremer, and then we were off to the races. Many would say "Frontline" is a liberal program. i disagree, its neither liberal nor conservative, just concise, and for the record, i am a Eisenhower Republican....you wont be bored by this program:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/bushswar/view/Most respectfully, neil