I think Weisberg is trying too hard to oversimplify, and that Woodward is leaving out an important consideration (it may be in his book, which I haven't yet read).

Weisberg compliled an extensive list of possible (plausible?) reasons. But he is being rather insistent on identifying which of them were decisive, and when the decision was made. The points missing from the discussion are, first, the way people process information, and second, the fact that the poltical climate at the time created tangible benefits to Bush which disposed him towards war.

Intelligence assessments, the existence or not of WMD, possible links between Saddam Hussein and al-quaeda--all of the available facts and interpretations of facts available to Bush were heavily laced with ambiguity. When faced with decisions in the presence of even minimal ambiguity, almost no human beings can analyze them completely objectively, and most tend to be strongly disposed to make the interpretation that is most advantageous to them. This happens to all of us to some degree, without our awareness. We will interpret available facts, and even bend them, if necessary, in order to interpret them in a way consistent with our pre-dispositions, without even thinking about it.

Bush is clearly either less able or less willing to set aside his pre-existing beliefs than most people, and most people aren't very good at it. This must be considered against the fact that, during the spring and summer leading up to the Iraq invasion, in a political sense, war was working for Bush and Cheney. This was not quite as truein 2001, when they were working with the so-called "Northern Alliance" to bring down the Taliban. Although most people agreed that action against the Taliban in Afghanistan was justified, many doubted whether it would be effective. However, by early in 2002, the skeptics looked wrong. After a few weeks of media coverage of the 2001 offensive which used the word "quagmire", the Taliban did indeed fall (at least in terms of governing Afghanistan). It was a huge political success for Bush at the time, and defining himself as The Anti-terrorist became the strategy used to help Republicans gain in the 2002 elections.

I don't know if Weisberg is right that a decision was made to go to war in Iraq in mid 2002. But a psychology disposed toward war was strongly entrenched, and continued to be further fortified by the political advantage the Republicans gained from exploiting the conflict. The result may well have been that no single (or even several) over-riding reason was needed. Between all of the players involved, a group-think took over in which each could assemble their own justifications from (as Weisberg shows) a long list of possibilities.

When you have a democracy governed by a collective dominated by a group-think that has been re-enforced by tangible benefits to the leaders resulting their interpretation of sketchy data, and when that same collective has great control over the presentation of the available datta to everyone else, the only reasons that really matter are the ones that will sell the idea to the public.

So the reasons that we invaded Iraq are that Bush had become convinced that it was "the right thing to do", and the public could be made to believe that it was at least plausible that Iraq had WMD. They're the reasons we've known all along. Given the way that people process complex information, what point is there in trying to determine which of the reasons on Weisberg's long list were compelling to GWB?

Thank you. At this point the dialogue has devolved to a debate over Woodward's research. Let's get back to the movie.

Nice post, it is important to highlight the way people make decisions, and the very real cognitive deficits and crutches we all possess.