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On the ten year anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, there has been an awful lot of naval gazing by our media, sadly with most of it being revisionist history on what happened during the run up to that invasion and occupation, with a lot of glossing over just how complicit the media was in helping the neocons beat the war drums. And as Jeremy Scahill noted during this interview on Martin Bashir's show, there's still a lot to answer for by our politicians on both sides of the aisles -- but in particular, the neocons and Bush administration.

It's too bad there wasn't any accountability for his fellow guest on the program, Michael O'Hanlon, who supported the invasion and who was as guilty as the rest of them with enabling the neocons. Scahill sadly didn't go after O'Hanlon, but I appreciate what he was given a chance to say during the segment.

SCAHILL: People like Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith should not be able to show their faces in public in this country without being confronted with what they did to Iraq. I mean, the reality is... having spent time in Iraq throughout the '90's... many of the Iraqis I knew are dead. Many of the Iraqis that survived the war are displaced and with the millions of others that have been displaced.

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I highly recommend watching the entire show if you have time which you can catch here if you don't have the show recorded at home, but here's one of the better portions of this Saturday's Up With Chris Hayes which followed their panel discussions which took at look back at the invasion of Iraq as the Status of Forces Agreement between the U.S. and Iraq ends today.

HAYES: Since we're taking a look at the legacy of the Iraq war today we thought we'd approach our now we know segment a little differently. One of the striking features of our tortured relationship with the war and it's aftermath is that as a byproduct of a kind of collective, social PTSD we simply no longer talk about Iraq very much at all. Because of this we've allowed so many of the key figures who engineered the war, sold the war and oversaw the bloody quagmire to escape the kind of public sanctions their failures merited.

So we thought as part of our looking the war squarely in the face it would be interesting to take a look at where some of the major and not so major players in our war effort and anti-war effort are now.

On Chris' list, Condoleeza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Judith Miller, David Addington, Paul Wolfowitz, Cindy Sheehan, General Eric Shinseki, Ari Fleischer, Jessica Lynch, Ken Pollock, Scooter Libby, Doug Feith and Paul Bremer. Sadly as Chris noted here, no bad deed has gone unrewarded when it comes to this group, most of whom are now making a comfortable living at conservative think tanks and are sadly still allowed to come on television and are asked for their opinions.

I'm quite sure we'll never see a segment like this on Meet the Press since David Gregory wouldn't want any of them to fall off of his potential guest list.

Best line of the segment:

HAYES: Doug Feith, the Undersecretary of Defense, who Geneal Tommy Franks once called "the f-ing stupidest guy on the face of the earth," is advising Rick Perry on foreign policy.

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CNN held their "national security" debate this Tuesday night and I have to say this one was even more bizarre to watch than the last one they had that was co-hosted by the AstroTurf "tea party", not so much because of anything the candidates said since that was a lot of the same we've been hearing during the last umpteen or however many debates they already had. No, this one was bizarre because of who was asking the questions.

The debate was sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute and their fellow conservative think tank, The Heritage Foundation and rather than moderator Wolf Blitzer asking all of the questions, we got treated to a host of neoconservatives questioning the candidates.

Among them were Iraq surge architect, Frederick Kagan, PNAC member and Bush era war propagandist Danielle Pletka, Mr. 'Iraq can pay for its own reconstruction' and fellow chickenhawk Paul Wolfowitz, Cheney's Cheney and torture advocate David Addington, and they wrapped things up by taking a question from his fellow torture apologist and former Bush speechwriter, Marc Thiessen.

CNN would have had a hard time coming up with a much more discredited lineup of war mongering, torture apologists to ask these candidates questions, but I guess they could have asked the Cheney's, John Yoo, John Bolton and Bill Kristol to round things out. Nothing like them giving air time to try to rehabilitate these Bush era neocons.

Time for your weekly Professional Left podcast with our own Driftglass and Bluegal.

Links for this episode include:

Charlie Pierce channels Driftglass (and you need to be on Facebook to leave a comment there?)

Newt Gingrich lauded by Wapo!!!

Rachel Maddow on Paul Wolfowicz

The Pentagon double-dipping on weapons

The Perpetual War Portfolio

You can listen to the archives at The Professional Left Podcast and make a donation there if you'd like to help keep these podcasts going. You can also follow them on Facebook at The Professional Left Podcast with Driftglass and Blue Gal, and there is a Professional Left App for your iPhone/iPod, as well.

Have a great weekend and enjoy the podcast everyone. Open Thread below...and don't forget to turn your clocks back.....

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Rachel Maddow explains what you have to do to be a member of “The Gingrich Caucus” and you’re a neo-con that never met a war you didn’t like but can’t seem to get your talking points straight on Libya since you hate anything a Democratic president does more.

Step 1—Demand U.S. military intervention in Libya.
Step 2—After President Obama intervenes in Libya, oppose military intervention.
Step 3—Hope no one remembers what you did in step 1.

It's time for your weekly podcast from our own Driftglass and Bluegal, otherwise known at The Professional Left. Enjoy the podcast and don't forget to vote for Bluegal if you'd like to help send her and Driftie to Netroots Nation this year at Democracy for America's site.

You can listen to the archives or make a donation to help keep these going at http://professionalleft.blogspot.com/. And here are some related links to this week's podcast.

1. Lewis Black signs on as Donald Trump's campaign manager.

2. Paul Wolfowitz.

3. Yeats' "The Second Coming".

4. Tom Friedman, "The Mustache of Understanding" .

5. Ginni Thomas hired by Bib-and-Tucker Carlson.

6. Steve Forbes gets eated.

7. Constantine's Sword.

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Not everyone on the right thinks that U.S. involvement in the operation against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is a good idea.

ABC News invited Iraq war architect Paul Wolfowitz and conservative columnist George Will Sunday to discuss the attack on Libya. Will seemed to have the Iraq war in mind when he warned Wolfowitz against "mission creep" in the Middle East.

"Do you think this was the right thing to do?" ABC's Christian Amanpour asked Will.

"I do not," Will said. "We have intervened in a tribal society in a civil war. And we've taken sides in that civil war on behalf of people we do not know or understand for the purpose of creating a political vacuum by decapitating that government. Into that vacuum, what will flow? We do not know. We cannot know."

Wolfowitz quickly disagreed.

"I understand George's hesitations," Wolfowitz said. "If you follow George's hesitations, you say, it's better to keep this devil we know than getting in someone new. I don't think anybody new could be worse than the devil in Tripoli right now."

"Wouldn't you say the hesitation, you can trace it write back to your operation in Iraq?" Amanpour pressed Wolfowitz. "There was such a pendulum swing against trying to intervene because of the chaos that was unleashed."

"We've paid the price of intervention sometimes," Wolfowitz admitted. "We've paid the price of non-intervention, in Bosnia, for example."

Amanpour noted that there seemed to a "double standard" when it came to taking military action against Libya, but ignoring the regimes in Bahrain and Yemen.

"You can't compare the regime in Bahrain or even the regime in [Yemen capital city] Sanaa to Gaddafi," Wolfowitz argued. "Yes, there is a certain -- there's something in common here, which is regimes that don't represent their people, they're not only wrong their ultimately unstable."

"I think what we should be working for in Bahrain, what we should be working for in Yemen are governments that are much more representative of their people so we can work with them better. But they're not -- it's absolutely wrong to compare what's happening there to what Gaddafi is doing and has been doing for 40 years," he added.

"There is no limiting principle in what we've done," Will countered. "If we are to protect people under assault, then where people are under assault in Bahrain, we're logically committed to help them. We're inciting them to rise up in expectation."

"The mission creep here began, Paul, before the mission began," he told Wolfowitz. "Because we had a means not suited to the end. The means is a no-fly zone. That will not affect the end, which is obviously regime change."

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While continuing to parade one neo-con after another on Fox for their opinions on the revolution in Egypt, The Journal Editorial Review's Paul Gigot asks Paul Wolfowitz about the Muslim Brotherhood's potential participation in the transitional government now that Mubarack has left office. Wolfowitz actually says something I agree with. Heaven forbid any of them will ever apply it to the theo-cons here in the United States.

GIGOT: Alright, briefly, very briefly Paul, should the Muslim Brotherhood participate in this transition?

WOLFOWITZ: I could offer you an opinion, but I really hesitate to do so because I think Egyptians have to decide that. And I hope that they will think about as they make those decisions whether a legitimate political party, a party, a political party can be considered legitimate if for example they don't concede equal rights to women.

GIGOT: Alright.

WOLFOWITZ: There are standards. There should be Egyptian standards.

Yeah Wolfowitz, there ought to be standards on whether we should be invading other countries that are not a threat to us as well, but that doesn't stop Fox from thinking you've got anything legitimate to say about what happens in Egypt.

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This Week's Christiane Amanpour talked to former Joint Chief Chair Gen. Hugh Shelton about the rush to invade Iraq by members of the Bush administration which he described as "almost to the point of insubordination." Color any of us that were paying attention at the time not surprised by this latest revelation. The PNAC crowd surrounding him in the White House were pushing to invade Iraq long before Bush was selected by our Supreme Court to be president or becoming members of his Cabinet.

AMANPOUR: Let's go back to when you were Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and even slightly afterwards, when President Bush decided to go to war in Iraq. You talk about it was based on faulty intelligence and indeed on lies and deceit, but you also say something about insubordination. You say, for instance, during meetings, "some people were kept on after Bush had tendered his opinion and issued an instruction based on that opinion. Yet certain strong-willed individuals seemed to disregard him and forge ahead with their own agendas, almost to the point of insubordination." That's a very strong indictment.

SHELTON: Well, there was a very strong push in those days for us to go into Iraq, and there was absolutely no intelligence, zero, that pointed toward -- pointed toward the Iraqis. It was all Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden. And yet there was an element there that was -- that was pushing to go into Iraq at the same time.

AMANPOUR: But what do you mean by insubordination?

SHELTON: The fact that the president says himself, we're not going to do that right now, let's focus on Afghanistan, the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Yet below the surface, we still had the sentiment that said, let's keep planning for Iraq just in case we can convince him that we can go.

AMANPOUR: And you think they could have convinced him?

SHELTON: Not at that time. I think that, as President Bush told me at Camp David, you know, I just don't see it. You know, we may go get Saddam and take him out, but it will be at a time and place of our choosing. It won't be as a part of the Afghanistan operation. He got it from day one. When he was briefed by the CIA…

AMANPOUR: So you're saying he was pushed into it?

SHELTON: I think eventually that that same drumbeat continued, and Afghanistan, remember, was going very, very well. The drumbeat back here in Washington was still pushing, coming out of the Pentagon, let's go to Iraq, let's get -- take him out. And he finally said, let's go. We walked out on the limb before we could build a coalition of the -- either the United Nations or NATO, one of the two.

AMANPOUR: You're very -- you have some harsh words about then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Is he part of the group that you are targeting here?

SHELTON: Well, I personally like Secretary Rumsfeld, but he was part of the group, he and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz, that continued to push to go into Iraq. And I think that's been documented on a number of occasions.

And here's another "tidbit" he threw in there that doesn't make me exactly feel warm and fuzzy about how our nuclear codes were being protected during the Clinton administration.

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Fareed Zakaria decided to allow former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz come on GPS for a bit of history revisionism on the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq. Zakaria pulls a typical Chris Wallace move where he actually calls Wolfowitz out for not telling the truth during the interview but after allowing Wolfowitz to spin for a bit in response, let's the lie stand and moves on to another question. Heaven forbid he wouldn't want to be confrontational with him. Wolfowitz might not come back on his show for another cozy chat and more turd polishing. We couldn't have that, now could we?

After making excuses for their inadequate planning on the number of troops that would have been required to keep Iraq from falling into chaos, Zakaria asks Wolfowitz about his statement that Iraq would be able to pay for its own reconstruction.

ZAKARIA: No - and I think the point you make is fair, but I also think you are a very prominent statesman in a democracy, and there is some sense of accountability. So I - you know, I want to ask you, in a sense, a bottom line question.

You were asked again by - by a Senate committee, will - how much will this cost and you said, Iraq will be able to pay for its own reconstruction relatively easily. In fact, that part didn't work out. That was so - looking back -

WOLFOWITZ: (INAUDIBLE) Fareed. I was asked how much will the war cost. I said we have no idea how much the war will cost. I said Iraq can - unlike Afghanistan, Iraq is not going to be a permanent ward of international -

ZAKARIA: Right. You said we are dealing with a country that can finance its reconstruction and relatively soon. That's the exact (INAUDIBLE).

WOLFOWITZ: After the end of conflict. This war went on. In fact, it's - to some extent, it still goes on today, and at this point, I think Iraq is largely - I don't know the numbers now.

OK, I was somewhat -- the sense was the war wouldn't last for six, seven years, and that this was a country with substantial oil resources.

ZAKARIA: Yes, but what I'm trying to get at is a larger question, which is, looking back from where we are now, in 2010, you know, the United States has spent over a trillion dollars in direct expenditures in Iraq on the - on the war and the post war, however you want to describe it.

Two and a half million Iraqis, by the UN's estimates, have fled the country. Most have not come back. Then there's the number who have been killed. We don't know.

You think it was worth it?

WOLFOWITZ: Look, I - how you answer whether it was worth it, I mean, I don't know how you ask someone who's lost a loved one or who's been seriously maimed whether if it was worth it. That's a - I couldn't answer that for them.

I do think that we're better off and the world is better off without that regime there.

ZAKARIA: And we will be back with Paul Wolfowitz in a moment.

After the conflict which of course is never going to end. I don't think so Wolfowitz. Media Matters has his quote from 2003.

Wolfowitz: "We're dealing with a country that could really finance its own reconstruction." As Think Progress noted, then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz testified before Congress on March 27, 2003, that "the oil revenues of that country [Iraq] could bring between 50 and 100 billion dollars over the course of the next two or three years. Now, there are a lot of claims on that money, but that's --- we're not dealing with Afghanistan that's a permanent ward of the international community. We are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon."

Relatively soon... not relatively soon after the conflict ends. And he thinks it was worth it even after all the money and lives that have been wasted. Of course it's always worth it to chickenhawks like Wolfowitz who are never the ones shouldering the burden for their decisions.