Epstein Secrets

, Bush belatedly moved to rein in his vice president, siding with Justice Department lawyers on surveillance issues; firing Cheney's dearest friend, Donald Rumsfeld, from his Pentagon job; letting Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice win the argument over whether to bomb a Syrian nuclear reactor site (we didn't)

ened. After Iraq, there has been a weird amnesty and amnesia about people's misjudgment on the most consequential decision of our times.... Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Bremer, Rice, McCain, Abrams, and others including the pro-war press claque are still offering their judgments unfazed. One of my fathe

n less discussed than the ongoing costs of the war are the opportunity costs -- the many things we might have spent that money on instead. In 2010, Bilmes and Stiglitz wrote that not only was their $3 trillion estimate of the war's cost too low, but so was their estimation of the opportunity costs: The

ned: After Iraq, there has been a weird amnesty and amnesia about people's misjudgment on the most consequential decision of our times. ... Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Bremer, Rice, McCain, Abrams, and others including the pro-war press claque are still offering their judgments unfazed. He concludes: "

int, I think will clearly decline. I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency." Or this one, from then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, uttered in the midst of the rioting and looting that broke out in the very predictable vacuum created when we toppled a central government with no

n less discussed than the ongoing costs of the war are the opportunity costs -- the many things we might have spent that money on instead. In 2010, Bilmes and Stiglitz wrote that not only was their $3 trillion estimate of the war's cost too low, but so was their estimation of the opportunity costs: Th

estimating $200 billion for Iraq. but that was before a monumentally mismanaged occupation and a civil war. Back then, in 2002. Defense Secretary Donald Rtunsfeld thought $50 billion to $60 billion woukl do the job, but he asked people not to hold him to a hard number. For the record, the price tag pas

" he said, "what history decides." U.S. troops and their families, as well as the Iraqis dying every day. are more than Interested" in whether Mr. Rumsfeld and President Bush are making good decisions. The generals and Mr. Rumsfeld also continued the administration's soft retreat from taking full res

ef executive safely can turn over to former campaign aides piunping up their resumes with govenunent jobs. If anyone shrank Mr Stigiitts and Ms. Bilmes 38-page paper to the president's attention span, he woukl notice a few things. The CI3O, using that 2015 date, estimated the full cost at $500 bi