Boy Scout Rules
South Knox Bubba thinks he's found proof that the Bush administration wasn't really serious in its pre-war diplomatic efforts at the United Nations vis a vis Iraq. He found the evidence in, of all places, a recently published email sent to University of Tennessee President John Shumaker and a consultant/friend/former business partner whom Shumaker hired on a no-bid contract.

I'll let Bubba explain - and then I'll tell you why Bubba's way off base on this.

Bubba:

I told you it wouldn't be long before Shumaker e-mails started appearing in the Knoxville News Sentinel. But this is not about that. It's about something in one of those e-mails:

Fishman asked Shumaker on March 11 if UT would be interested in trying for part of a $900 million contract for rebuilding in Iraq. "Would UT be interested in partnering with RAND (The RAND Corp., an independent private nonprofit organization) to propose both teacher training and an international high school in post-war Iraq?" No response was included in the documents released Wednesday.

Isn't that interesting. On March 11th the United States was supposedly still pursuing a diplomatic solution to the problem of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. There were negotiations underway for a final, "this is it we really mean it this time" UN resolution. It wasn't until March 17th that Bush declared all diplomatic efforts had failed, and gave Saddam one last chance to leave Iraq within 48 hours or we would invade. Hostilities commenced on March 20.

So, nine days before the invasion, while we were "still seeking a diplomatic solution" the RAND Corporation was letting bids on contracts to rebuild Iraq after the war. I'm guessing that a $900 million contract wasn't cooked up over the weekend on some guy's laptop. I'm guessing they would have been working on it for quite some time. I'm also guessing that the government would have had to provide requirements and specification.

Now, obviously I am not so naive as to believe we were REALLY working on a diplomatic solution or that the invasion of Iraq would somehow be prevented. But as more information comes out it becomes clearer that the Bush administration had no intention of seeking any solution other than the occupation of Iraq and its oil fields, and that it was a long time in the planning.

Further, it is obvious that efforts to work through the UN towards a diplomatic solution were simply window dressing - a cynical attempt to paint a thin veneer of international law and gain worldwide support for plans already set in motion.

Now, of course, Bubba is just being silly. Or he missed the Left's latest anti-Bush talking points and doesn't know the current anti-Bush meme being circulate by the Left regarding Iraq is that Bush may have won the war, but he's losing the peace because he wasn't fully prepared to run Iraq after the war.

Consider the words of Howard Dean, Bubba's favorite of the nine Democrats running for president

I opposed President Bush’s war in Iraq from the beginning. While Saddam Hussein’s regime was clearly evil and needed to be disarmed, it did not present an immediate threat to U.S. security that would justify going to war, particularly going to war alone. From the beginning, I felt that winning the war would not be the hard part – winning the peace would be. This administration failed to plan for the postwar period as it did for the battle, and today we are paying the price.

The Left is criticizing Bush for being unprepared to run post-war Iraq. Bubba is slamming him for trying to be prepared.