Dick Cheney's Fingerprints by Jim Freeman

On March 20, 2003 the United States and Great Britain attacked Iraq, staying for 8 years, 273 days and leaving behind 150,000 Iraqi civilians dead and another half-million collateral victims. The cost to the US economy alone is estimated to $3 trillion, three thousand billion we didn't have to begin with and failed to tax ourselves for, no one yet knowing the true cost. Dick Cheney's Fingerprints begins 533 days before the invasion and points out how this war came to be, how it was perceived and reported by the media and how a terrified nation after the 9-11 attacks failed to either prevent or protest it. The threads of this sad fabric lead to Dick Cheney and his axe-man, David Addington. Jim Freeman voiced his concerns, but as Voltaire said some 300 years ago, "It is dangerous to be right in matters where established men are wrong." They were, tragically wrong. Freeman's observations not only make a good read, but put you in the context of the time at the time. They're compiled as originally written, without benefit of hindsight, ending in December 2006. The final five years of the Iraq War added casualties, costs and destruction, but the script was in place and already had Dick Cheney's fingerprints all over it.