Media Matters Reports on more right-wing lies about what we knew/didn't know about Iraq's Infrastructure

Lowry baselessly pinned failures of Iraq postwar plan on faulty U.S. intelligence

In an August 5 speech before the Young America's Foundation's National Conservative Student Conference, National Review editor Rich Lowry falsely blamed intelligence failures for America's lack of planning for a postwar Iraq. He asserted that intelligence agencies harbored a vision of Iraq as the "most sophisticated, modern country in the Middle East," but "we had no idea of the nature of Iraqi institutions and society, ... no idea the electricity basically didn't work."(emphasis added)

Media Matters goes on to rightly debunk the "ignorance" argument.

Link:

7/26 WSJ Iraq Mismanagement Story Piques Our Interest
Link to Raw Story report: http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Bush_aide_turns_critic_on__0726.html

Why? The story is mainly about Mr. Stuart Bowen, a man who has greatly benefitted from his proximity to Gov. and President Bush. His latest task was to be a toothless, "go along to get along" type of inspector general for Bremer's CPA. Fortunately, he actually took his job seriously and issued a string of "just the facts ma'am" reports that uncovered everything from negligence to outright theft on the part of CPA and US military personnel.
Why does this concern trblmkr? Isn't my main beef how the US miscalculated (lied about?)Iraq rebuilding costs before the war and then lied about why afterwards? Yes, and here's the overlap. Bremer is quoted as follows when rebuking his erstwhile employee, Mr. Bowen:

"Mr. Bremer chided the auditor for expecting conventional levels of accountability, saying that "given the situation the CPA found in Iraq at liberation, this is an unrealistic standard."" (emphasis added)

"...CPA found in Iraq..."
This, like Powell's 10/03 Madrid conference comments, makes it sound like the US had no means to even formulate a guess about Iraq'a prewar situation, ranging from infrastructure to existence of corruption. This is simply not true and to insinuate otherwise is a blatant lie to US taxpayers and our soldiers. Do reasoned readers think that we really entered this Iraq war with that degree of ignorance, 2000-page State Dept. memos, specifically written for "Phase IV" would suggest otherwise. If it wasn't ignorance on a massive scale, already bad enough, that leaves only the worse alternative...