“we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on.”

Once the war was over and it became evident that U.S. troops occupying Iraq were unlikely to find any banned weapons, Wolfowitz calmly changed his tune and took to calling the WMDs a “secondary issue.” Returning from a visit to Iraq in July 2003, he thus said “I’m not concerned about weapons of mass destruction, I’m concerned about getting Iraq on its feet.” He further claimed that Iraqis themselves had little concern about the “historical” issue of weapons. Then came Wolfowitz’s now famous admission (see Vanity Fair, July 2003) that for bureaucratic reasons “we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on.” This was a bombshell that had the refreshing quality of truthfulness. Wolfowitz’s debonair arrogance was breathtaking, and, at the level of pragmatic policy-making, apparently irrational: By admitting that he and his colleagues had taken everyone for a ride he ensured that the exercise could not be repeated as easily.