Lee Hamilton on Untangling Iraq

Lee Hamilton, on matching your rhetoric with resources.

Hamilton: We have to be hardheaded, and we have to not be driven by ideology in making the judgment as to whether or not to intervene. That’s the toughest decision that the American government makes. Do you intervene? Do you put young lives at risk? Do you go to war? By all odds, the toughest question that a government deals with. We went into that war on intelligence that was driven by ideology. It was not hardheaded, pragmatic, practical intelligence. We went into that war greatly overestimating the threat, and greatly underestimating how tough it would be to handle the problem. So we have to get a much more firmer grip, if you would, on reality and the difficulties. And then we have to answer this question: How much are we willing to spend in lives and resources to achieve certain goals? One of the things that has really impressed me about Iraq is that we have never, ever been willing to put the resources into it that our very extraordinary goals that we have articulated would require. We just haven’t been willing to match the resources with the rhetoric. Recorded on: 7/5/07

Hamilton: We have to be hardheaded, and we have to not be driven by ideology in making the judgment as to whether or not to intervene. That’s the toughest decision that the American government makes. Do you intervene? Do you put young lives at risk? Do you go to war? By all odds, the toughest question that a government deals with. We went into that war on intelligence that was driven by ideology. It was not hardheaded, pragmatic, practical intelligence. We went into that war greatly overestimating the threat, and greatly underestimating how tough it would be to handle the problem. So we have to get a much more firmer grip, if you would, on reality and the difficulties. And then we have to answer this question: How much are we willing to spend in lives and resources to achieve certain goals? One of the things that has really impressed me about Iraq is that we have never, ever been willing to put the resources into it that our very extraordinary goals that we have articulated would require. We just haven’t been willing to match the resources with the rhetoric. Recorded on: 7/5/07