Shrub completely ignored the warnings in 2003 that we were heading into disaster. This is certainly a bombshell.

“The possibility of the United States winning the war and losing the peace in Iraq is real and serious,” warned an Army War College report that was completed in February 2003, a month before the invasion.

Without an “overwhelming” effort to prepare for the U.S. occupation of Iraq, the report warned: “The United States may find itself in a radically different world over the next few years, a world in which the threat of Saddam Hussein seems like a pale shadow of new problems of America’s own making.”

A half-dozen intelligence reports also warned that American troops could face significant postwar resistance. This foot-high stack of material was distributed at White House meetings of Bush’s top foreign policy advisers, but there’s no evidence that anyone ever acted on it.

“It was disseminated. And ignored,” said a former senior intelligence official.

Did you get that? Foot-high stacks of intelligence reports saying we had a serious chance of losing the war were given out at the White House – while we were being told it would be a piece of cake. And the reports were simply dismissed. That amounts to gross negligence.

This administration wins the gold star when it comes to ignoring dire warnings. Remember, for example, Richard Clarke’s security brief, “Osama Bin Laden Intends to Attack America”? The one Condi called a mere “historical document”? And yet bush can’t think of a single mistake — not even one — aside from appointing a few officials who weren’t loyal enough to him. Oh, the hubris, the vanity, the stupidity; but then, why should he listen to intelligence reports when God speaks through him?

Via Andrew Sullivan, who sees this as proof of “the appalling amateurism” with which our leaders conducted their dirty little war.