About that massive cover-up

Ever since the tragic attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans, "Benghazi" has been the Republican response to almost every question. Despite receiving the report of the State Department's Accountability Review Board (whose recommendations were immediately endorsed by the Obama administration), hearing the testimony of the outgoing secretary of state, secretary of defense and head of the CIA, and getting additional information demanded from the White House, GOP senators have threatened to block the nominations of the president's entire national security team.

Over the last few weeks, that grandstanding has crossed the line from cynical obstruction to slander. While South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham proclaimed "Hillary Clinton got away with murder," John McCain (R-AZ) charged the Obama administration with perpetrating a "massive cover-up." When pressed for evidence by Meet the Press host David Gregory, McCain could muster only:

"Do you care whether four Americans died?...Shouldn't people be held accountable for the fact that four Americans died?"

There was a massive cover-up, all right, just not involving Libya but Iraq. That U.S. catastrophe cost over 4,400 American lives, wounded over 30,000 and led to the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians. Ten years and over $1 trillion later, no one was held accountable. Instead, many got medals.

As the 10-year anniversary of the invasion of Iraq approaches, it's worth remembering how that war was sold to the American people in the fall of 2002. (And it was "sold"; as Bush chief of staff Andy Card explained that summer, "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August.") In an Oct. 7 address in Cincinnati, President Bush warned, "Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof'the smoking gun'that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud." That echoed the talking point National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice mouthed a month earlier, when she fretted, "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." Addressing the VFW nearly six months before Colin Powell would make his infamous presentation to the United Nations, Vice President Dick Cheney was unequivocal about the threat from Saddam Hussein:

"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us. And there is no doubt that his aggressive regional ambitions will lead him into future confrontations with his neighbors -- confrontations that will involve both the weapons he has today, and the ones he will continue to develop with his oil wealth."

For his part, John McCain was on board 100 percent. He didn't just agree that the Iraq war would be a short one and that Americans would be "greeted as liberators." Three months after the invasion in June 2003, McCain announced:

"I remain confident that we will find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq."

But it didn't work out that way. Bush, Cheney, Rice and McCain (among others) were, as Iraq Survey Group Charles Duelfer testified in October 2004, "almost all wrong."

Learn more about the cover-up that wasn't below the fold.