What If--Hubris, Bay of Pigs, and Iraq

Just finished reading "Hubris" by Isikoff and Corn, focusing on the spinning of intelligence leading up to the war in Iraq. It was good, not too sensationalist. A main thread is the Niger uranium, Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame, Scooter Libby and Karl Rove. I would have liked some speculation: did Bush have a "Beckett" moment--who will rid me of this priest--was it Cheney, was one or both doing the details, or did Libby and Rove work out their campaign together, or was it just the knee-jerk reaction of political operatives? We'll probably never know, at least until Libby's trial or someone writes their memoir.

There's a "what-if" scenario that intrigues me. If I remember Secretary Cohen was waving a 5 pound bag of sugar around on TV during the Clinton administration. And he and Albright were pushing an aggressive line until they ran into a buzz saw of questions at some college that they didn't have good answers to. So just suppose that on the final days of the Clinton administration George Tenet had completed the National Intelligence Estimate that was done in the fall of 2002? In other words, say the Clinton Administration on January 20, 2001 was where the Bush administration was on November 1, 2002. Then the Bush people come in. What happens?

There's a parallel in 1961--Ike leaves JFK the Bay of Pigs operation. JFK modifies it but goes ahead. A difference--JFK had hit Nixon for not being hard enough on Castro; Bush never mentioned terrorism. Another difference--there probably was more comity, more "establishment rule" in 1961 than in 2001.

So does Bush go ahead with the flawed intelligence and missing plans? Or does his team say--Not Invented Here--and tear it apart? I suspect, given today's atmosphere, the latter.