A newly declassified US intelligence memo has been unearthed this week and featured in a bombshell Wall Street Journal report. It proves that the year prior to the Bush administration’s 2003 invasion of Iraq the White House was expressly warned in great detail of all that could and would go wrong in the regime change war’s aftermath, including the Sunni-Shia sectarian chaos and proxy war with Iran that would define Iraq and the whole region for years following. And crucially, it reveals that seven months before the US invasion of Iraq, American intelligence officials understood that Osama bin Laden was likely “alive and well and hiding in northwest Pakistan” — important given that a key Bush admin claim to sell the war was that Saddam Hussein and bin Laden were “in league” against the United States.
The July 2002 memo was authored by William Burns, then serving as assistant secretary of state for near eastern affairs, and though clearly dismissed by the Bush neocons making the case for war, proved prescient on many levels. “Following are some very quick and informal thoughts on how events before, during and after an effort to overthrow the regime in Baghdad could unravel if we’re not careful, intersecting to create a ‘perfect storm’ for American interests,” Burns wrote in the memo, classified ‘Secret’ and sent to Secretary of State Colin Powell.
