Hugh Hewitt interviewed Christopher Hitchens regarding the Iraqi Survey Group or ISG as they are now being called (Also being called Iraqi Surrender Group). Hitch brought up a very interesting point.
HH: Of the 43 former officials and experts consulted, there are included Mark Danner of the New York Review of Books, Thomas Friedman, Leslie Gelb, Sandy Berger, Anthony Lake, Ken Pollack, Thomas Ricks and George Will. The ISG did not find, I’m quoting from my blog here, the ISG did not find it necessary to talk with, say, Victor Davis Hanson, Lawrence Wright, Robert Kaplan, Mark Steyn, Michael Ledeen, Reuel Marc Gerecht, or Christopher Hitchens. I think Bill Kristol got five minutes. Did they seal themselves off, Christopher Hitchens, from any kind of robust approach to Iraq?
CH: Well, I don’t particularly mind being snubbed by someone like James Baker, let alone Mr. Lee Hamilton. I can live with that. But what does annoy me…I can be annoyed on someone else’s behalf. And I know, for example, that our friends in the Kurdistan regional government, which is the most successful and thriving and prosperous and peaceful part…not just only of Iraq, but of the whole region, is a great success of the regime change platform, were not invited to contribute, were not visited in the three provinces of Northern Iraq that they control, and that they’ve kept safe, without losing a single American soldier. In fact, there are hardly any American soldiers needed there, that the committee didn’t travel there when it was in Iraq, it didn’t seek their opinions in Baghdad either, and that seems to me an absolutely grotesque oversight.
Grotesque oversite indeed. Unless of course the goal was not to find ways to succeed in Iraq but instead to find ways to retreat safely and blame Bush for Vietnam 2.0. I mean seriously can there be any doubt about their predisposition if they didn't even look a successful implimentation of what we are trying to accomplish in Baghdad?
