Failing upward: A quiz

(Courtesy of ThinkProgress.)

The numbers reflect the scale of their accomplishment:

• Over 2300 American soldiers dead and a minimum of 18,000 wounded


• Estimates of Iraqi civilian count somewhere in the five or six figure range


• The cost to taxpayers at $270 billion and climbing by the second

But what's become of the braintrust that put the Iraq War together three (or four, or more) years ago? Test yourself. (Answers here.)

Here are the architects of Bush's War and their job titles back in 2003:

• Elliot Abrams, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director on the National Security Council for Near East and North African


• Dan Bartlett, White House Communications Director


• George Bush, President


• Dick Cheney, Vice President


• Mitch Daniels, Director of the Office of Management and Budget


• Douglas Feith, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy


• Stephen Hadley, Deputy National Security Advisor


• Andrew Natsios, Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development


• Richard Perle, Chairman of Defense Policy Board


• Colin Powell, Secretary of State


• Condoleezza Rice, National Security Advisor


• Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense


• Richard Tenet, Director, Central Intelligence Agency


• Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense


• David Wurmser, Special Assistant to John Bolton in the State Department

Now see if you can match the names with where they've landed today:

• Promoted to head the World Bank in March 2005


• Co-chairman of a project at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government to write an academic book on how to fight terrorism


• Promoted to National Security Advisor


• Resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute where he specializes in national security and defense issues


• Promoted to deputy national security adviser in February of 2005


• Promoted to Principal Deputy Assistant to the Vice President for National Security Affairs in charge of coordinating Middle East strategy


• Currently teaching at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh’s School of Foreign Service as a Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy and Advisor on International Development


• Re-elected Vice President in 2004


• Promoted to Counselor to the President on January 5, 2005, and is responsible for the formulation of policy and implementation of the President’s agenda


• Re-elected President in 2004


• Elected Governor of Indiana in 2004


• Re-appointed Secretary of Defense in 2004
• Awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2004


• Poised to succeed Henry Kissinger in May as Chairman of the Eisenhower Fellowship Program at the City College of New York


• Promoted to Secretary of State in 2004, and is being widely-mentioned as a possible presidential candidate

You can begin to see why Michael "Heck of a Job" Brown is feeling badly used--with his track record of failure at FEMA, he should at least have a cushy job at a right-wing think-tank somewhere, wouldn't you think?

Bush has surrounded himself with--and rewarded, or at least protected--people who haven't a clue how to fix the mess they've made in Iraq. Worse, they haven't the desire. Bush wasn't kidding when he said he figured it was the next president's problem to clean up his mess.