Selective Intelligence

James Joyner distills current Bush administration criticism down to the bare essentials: “Damned if You Do…”

Watching several of the Sunday morning talk shows, I’ve noticed two themes:
The Bush Administration didn’t do enough with sketchy pieces of intelligence that al Qaeda was going to do something, somewhere, at some time and is therefore responsible for not preventing the 9/11 attacks.
The Bush Administration relied too heavily on now-discredited intelligence that Saddam Hussein was ramping up WMD production and used it to launch a war before we were attacked.

But of course, this is far too black and white an analysis.
A more sophisticated president would have understood the complexities of the history and culture of the Middle East, and made reparations for past insults to Islam.
A true diplomat would have negotiated the peaceful retirement of Saddam, with seats on the UN Human Rights Committee for his sons, and disarmed and rehabilitated the Fedayeen. This would have freed the Iraqis from the chokehold of the “US” sanctions, removing their troops from Saudi Arabia and the no-fly zone, thereby avoiding intelligence altogether.
See? Is that so hard?