Id be a bit more cynical about Hitchens, especially considering where he was in 2001. Washed up, alcoholic, probably pretty broke and facing into a retirement with no pension, with the only prospect of scraping cash together coming from occasional speeches, articles and introductions.
I think, like many, he saw an opportunity after 9/11 and went straight for the golden ring. I can see no other credible explanation as to how someone who wrote so insightfully on Kissinger and the sewer morality of America's imperial phase could cosy up to greasy mass murdering charlatans like Wolfowitz, Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld. He would simply have to unknow too much.