Andy McCarthy reacts to George Tenet’s 60 Minutes’ appearance:

Why do the Iraq naysayers never confront the counterfactual scenario of their dreams? If we had left Saddam in place, the sanctions would have disintegrated in short order — Security Council members France, Russia and China were bought and paid for in Oil-for-Food bribes. Once the sanctions had collapsed, Saddam would have been right back in business — his WMD programs ready to be up and running again (to the extent they were not running already) as he sat there with about $20 billion in Oil-for-Food profits and an ongoing relationship with al Qaeda (among many other jihadist groups).

If you want to say we shouldn’t have gone to Iraq, and should have anticipated the present chaos there, fair enough. But at least have the honesty to say you’d prefer the alternative: A Saddam Hussein, emboldened from having faced down the United States and its sanctions, loaded with money, arming with WMDs, and coddling jihadists.

Here’s Bill Kristol on Tenet’s imaginary encounter with Richard Perle.

And here’s Scott Ott’s spoof: Former CIA Boss Out of Loop on Parts of His New Book