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Yesterday, many pundits were in agreement that Bush was finally “coming out of his bubble” by admitting that he acted on bad intelligence and by giving a series of “real” interviews and speeches with real reporters and
posted by The Decider @ 9:58 AM
This is it -- our piece of the rock, where we set the agenda and lay the smack down. Or (more likely) exchange ideas civilly, listen intently, and learn from each other and from our visitors. Fantastiko offers political fireworks, news that flies under the radar, and a safe place for constructive debate.
Although he encourages debate and, in general, the open expression of ideas, he is THE KNOWER AND DECIDER OF ALL THINGS. The Decider is generous and has little interest in keeping complete world knowledge to himself; therefore, you will find answers to life's puzzling puzzles here. He lives comfortably in Columbia, Maryland with his wife, child, labrador retriever, and many books of knowledge.
17 Comments:
I liked it the other day when Bush was asked how many Iraqis had been killed during the war. He replied "30,000, give or take." Like he was telling somebody how much he won in a poker game or something. How can the American people (and the Iraqi people) take this man seriously?
You were reading my mind!
With all this talk of voting and democracy, we're given an impression by Bush and the media that this is a turning point in "the march for freedom". While this may be true, it amazes me that the cost is totally ignored in virtually every conversation on the war. Besides cost of American lives, we never discuss the cost of the lives of others. And rarely do we remind ourselves that this is costing close to 1 trillion dollars.
According to Bush logic, we should nuke North Korea and install a democracy in its place. Since we're not measuring "the cost of freedom", why not? In Bush logic, the ends justify the means regardless of the nature of the means.
3 things lead to policy: political and economic objectives, intelligence, and public opinion. If the objective were to secure Iraqi petroleum without the allowing the Ba'ath regime to use that revenue to arm itself, then regime change is the obvious policy - one that the Clinton administration also reached in 1999.
The difference between Clinton and Bush is that while Clinton did nothing to affect his own stated policy, Bush chose to go to war for it.
If the objectives are the same, and the policy the same, can we fault Bush for affecting his policy and ignore Clinton for abandoning his? Is the debate over intelligence used as part of a case to justify war relevant to the more significant question of policy towards Iraq?
What should have been the policy towards Iraq?
...an interesting link about his most recent speech (link taken from another blog). Read it!
http://www.themoderatevoice.com/posts/1134666114.shtml
I just saw new polls showing he's definitely climbing in approvals.
MMT:
Good points. But...
I don't pretend to know the answer to the Iraq problem. And I don't mean to say that Clinton's inaction on regime change was the right choice.
Quickly, let me mention that when I evaluate policy, I do so in terms of formulation, implementation, and the actor's evaluation of that policy.
My issue here with Bush isn't the stated policy objective that he shared with Clinton. Bush and Clinton shared the objective of regime change, but NOT the formulation of the specific components or the implementation of the policies. I can't compare Bush’s formulation and implementation to Clinton’s because, as you said, Clinton never implemented a regime change policy, or even formulated a specific, actionable regime change policy.
The intelligence question is very relevant because our options in Iraq are defined by our past actions, which include mishandling and misrepresenting intelligence. This mistreatment motivated public opinion to back the war (one of your three pillars), and motivated allies, in part, to drop support for the war. This mistreatment of intelligence speaks to the competence, motivation, and credibility of the key players (USA and its current allies). This mistreatment sets precedence for future policy, allowing for policy to be made on lies and deception instead of evidence. How can we fully understand and implement our policy options without fully understanding and properly representing the formulation and implementation of our current policy?
True political and economic objectives are, in my view, transparent. No government will oppose future US policy if it is in the best interest of their survival, or of their own people, to support it.
Has this episode irreparably harmed Bush's or any future president's ability to sway public opinion in support of policy? Perhaps in the short term, but his rising polls indicate this is likely the case only in the short term.
Would copping to intentionally perpetrating a huge ruse on the the American public improve his ability to "sell" policy? I don't think so. Nor do I think this is what he did.
I believe the policy of regime change was correct, and that war was the only way to affect that change before the end of UN sanctions against Iraq.
I think his administration had a policy of regime change all along, and that they used fear of terrorism to garner public support for it. But I don't believe that it will irreparably harm this president or any future president's ability to garner public suppport for policy.
Bush has had to sacrifice most of his domestic agenda as a result of the war and the way it was sold. But once there is a functioning democracy in Iraq the method for affecting such a change will be long forgotten, and rightfully so, both for the US and for Iraq.
“Has this episode irreparably harmed Bush's or any future president's ability to sway public opinion in support of policy?” Though public opinion in part defines our current policy options, public opinion’s role in a policy shouldn’t be judged in terms of swayability (I made that word up); it should be judged in terms of sensibility or logic. If we were only concerned with swayability, then governments would be justified in lying all of the time just to get public support for a policy, which I guess is not an absurd notion given the current climate. I was trying to get at something deeper in terms of public opinion.
Policy options are affected when a government’s actions ignore or fulfill its duty to interact responsibly with its people. When a government interacts responsibly with its people (e.g. doesn’t mislead them with bad intelligence), policy options are affected because the people can sensibly respond to government actions by either empowering or discouraging a government to re-identify and/or achieve those options. This interaction between government and its people is the essence of public service. Bush ignored his duty to interact responsibly with us. By doing so, Bush lowered the public’s ability to be sensible about policy options (without being properly informed, how can we have logical opinions?). He also lowered the standard for truth, accuracy, and logic. Therefore he altered the relationship between us and our government in a negative way. This is what I mean by hurting our credibility and setting dangerous precedence.
Even if you argue that the ends are justified as a result of this policy—that we end up with a democracy that will serve some greater good—the means by which we met those ends will have unacceptably altered the relationship between a government and its people. Until this is either repaired or at least examined, we cannot reach our potential for good policy in Iraq or anywhere else because our ability to sensibly support or criticize that policy has been harmed. All of this is in addition to the fact that the formulation and implementation of this policy is flawed when considering other costs like lives and astronomical sums of money.
I think this argument doesn’t fly with you in part because we’re working under different assumptions. You don’t think he mislead anyone or acted irresponsibly, right?
Tonight in his speech he said he was "wrong" but was "right" about being wrong. It made my head hurt. Then we turned the volume down and pretended it was Mystery Science Theatre 3000.
Meant to respond some time ago - sorry. No, I don't believe we were mislead by the president or the administration. They were plainly wrong, but unless they knew there were no weapons, I don't know if that amounts to misleading us.
Given that I agree with the policy of regime change, as did Clinton, and given that I don't believe there were sufficient alternatives to war to avoid consolidation of the Ba'ath regime before (rather ineffective) UN sanctions were lifted, I don't believe he acted irresponsibly.
As for "selling" policy - yes, that sounds rather cynical. But take Hilary Clinton's push for universal healthcare. That was a noble effort defeated because it wasn't sold particularly well, and today there are over 40 million americans with no health insurance, and when is the last time our premiums went down from one year to the next?
Well, if some policies have to be sold, I don't think that's a bad thing as long as they are good policies. I suppose the question could be if regime change is a good policy. Also, what impact on future good policies does selling a "good" policy in a less than accurate way have?
With all due respect, measuring the quality of Bush’s interpretations and actions regarding pre-war intelligence is not as simple as not deciding whether or not he knew there aren’t WMD; it’s also a matter of 1) measuring how Bush used this knowledge to logically connect the intelligence with actions and 2) how that logic was presented to the other branches of government and to the world.
On Bush’s conclusions: I believe what The Nation’s David Corn wrote. He said that, “The primary rationale for the war Bush offered in public was based on two notions: Iraq possessed ready-to-go WMDs and Saddam Hussein was in league with al Qaeda and could slip these awful weapons to Osama bin Laden at any moment. (Last fall (2002), Bush exclaimed--with no caveats or qualifiers--that Hussein was "dealing" with al Qaeda.) The danger, Bush and his crew argued repeatedly, was imminent and real--so clear-and-present that the United States could not afford to wait any longer or take a chance on enhanced and more intrusive inspections.”
These were Bush’s interpretations and actions in response to pre-war intelligence. I defy anyone to say otherwise.
On the intelligence: The Senate Intelligence Committee concluded in part one of their investigation that the intelligence was flawed.
On the handling of intelligence and presenting it to the public: The delay in part two of the Senate Intelligence Committee, meant to examine any political manipulation of that intelligence, was the subject of the famous closed-door sessions in early November. Until then, the handling of all of the evidence has not been brought to light. However, we know from interviews with intelligence officials and from members of the House Intelligence Committee that “When discussing Iraq's WMD, administration officials rarely included the caveats and qualifiers.” We also know that even though Dick Cheney and others said that Hussein was not a real threat following the 2000 election, his position turned 180 degrees by drawing images of mushroom clouds and the like.
Here’s a good rundown of prewar statements made by administration officials:
Early in Bush’s first term, in February of 2001, Powell and Rumsfeld said that Iraq was not a nuclear threat. Rumsfeld: "Iraq is probably not a nuclear threat at the present time." Powell: "[Saddam] has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors." Powell also declared the containment policy a success. Powell: "And even though they may be pursuing weapons of mass destruction of all kinds, it is not clear how successful they have been. So to some extent, I think we ought to declare this a success. We have kept him contained, kept him in a box." While "his activities present a danger to the region, they are not a danger to the United States." He repeated this assessment in May of 2001: "The Iraq regime militarily remains fairly weak." In July of 2001, Rice spoke of "progress on the sanctions...He does not control the northern part of his country. His military forces have not been rebuilt. This has been a successful period." As late as 9/16/01, Cheney said (in answer to a question regarding terrorism) that "Saddam Hussein’s bottled up." Asked if we have any evidence linking Saddam Hussein to 9/11, he answered "No." In 1995 General Hussein Kamel, who was the director of Iraq’s weapons program, had defected with crates of documents and told U.N. officials "All weapons – biological, chemical, missile, nuclear were destroyed." CIA Director Tenet’s January 2002 review of global weapons did not mention Iraq but did mention North Korea.
How did we get from this to a case for war? A good amount of misleading is how.
My contention is that I agree with the policy of regime change and it would be irresponsible for Bush to proclaim it in words, but abandon it in action, as did Clinton. Given that basis, that regime change is correct and should be acted on, what are the alternatives for achieving this?
There is UN action, which was tried and did nothing to achieve regime change after 11 years of sanctions and embargoes undermined by the Oil for Food program, and the absence of a viable internal political option, because of the effective Stalinist Ba’ath regime in place.
There is covert activity, which was undermined by the Stalinist Ba’ath regime and the interests of those countries with an economic interest in keeping the regime in place (e.g. Germany, France and Russia) as well as an economic interest in the end of sanctions.
The only other viable alternative for regime change is the threat or act of war. The threat of war failed due the ineffectiveness of UN resolutions, the absence of verifiable disarmament on the part of the Ba’ath regime, and history of the Ba’ath regime which showed that only actual military action causes this regime to capitulate.
Now if I accept that military action is the only way to achieve a just policy objective of regime change, how can I quibble over the admin’s use of shaky intelligence to justify this action? What alternative did they have that would have achieved a just policy objective? Furthermore, what evidence do we have that although the admin’s policy was wrong, was known to be wrong while they were purporting it? To me, only this rises to the level of misleading the public. The contention that intelligence community had confirmed one way or the other whether 1) WMD existed, 2) WMD were sought.
The conclusion that the threat of acquiring WMD was imminent was never stated by the administration, only interpreted, and even if that were the case, it would have only been wrong and not intentional misinformation. The litany of examples of geopolitical intelligence that the intelligence community failed to acquire is long and given the atmoshphere following 9/11, it can be argued that a president who presided over the worst attack in the US since Pearl Harbor (one of those intelligence failures, by the way) did not have the luxury of relying exclusively on inconclusive information from the intelligence community in order to take action on policy that serves the US interest.
This argument is not merely restricted to terrorism, but frankly any situation that could reasonably seen to, in the future, cause the US to have to react to a geopolitical situation (possibly, but not exclusively, militarily), including having to send a quarter million US troops to the middle east to deal with the Ba’ath regime.
Again, I will concede that the threat of terrorism was used to induce support for action against Iraq, but the case was not restricted to WMD, nor the connection to Al Quaeda, although that was the most resonant. And if a president were to sell his policy on providing universal healthcare, with less than accurate or full information, that is easily forgiven because the objective and the means are seen to be both noble. But when the president seeks to achieve an noble end, with less than noble means (i.e. regime change through the threat or act of war), there he enters into an area that is less forgiving because of the horrific nature of war.
That is understandable, but given that I believe regime change to be a correct policy, I still haven't seen an effective alternative to this presidents actions. If I did, my position might change.
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Why “quibble” over administration’s use of shaky intelligence to justify this “noble” action? Because this instance of shaky use of information has consequences that are significant. They compromised our ability to have an honest debate. The nobility of the means is as important as the nobility of the ends. The means defines our process, our infrastructure, our identity—our everything.
On the one hand, you say that misleading was justified because there were no other alternatives, but on the other hand you say that we weren’t misled. Can these to arguments logically coexist? I’ll assume that you’re meaning to argue that it doesn’t matter if the administration intentionally misled us because there were supposedly no other policy alternatives to meet this “noble” end. With this in mind, I’ll resist arguing my case that we were, in fact, misled. Let’s let the Senate Intelligence Committee decide this issue (investigation is ongoing). Let me take a new approach while addressing this issue of a noble end. Forgive me for reframing my argument, but it’s really getting at the same point: the policy objective of regime change should not be the only policy objective here. As with any American policy, this policy should have an implicit objective: our constitutional goal to form a more perfect union. Why quibble over process and means? Process and means impact our undisputed drive towards a more perfect union. Even how we go about quibbling over process and means has an impact in this respect. While this implicit policy objective is admittedly subjective, it implies a demand for accountability, honesty, and process with integrity consistent with the rest of the Constitution. I do not think that this policy objective was met, nor do I think that it was kept in mind by the administration.
I don't believe that Bush intentionally mislead the country, because unless he knew there were no weapons, it cannot be argued he intentionally mislead the country about his assessment that there were weapons.
While the nobility of the means and the ends are important, there are times when the one outweighs the other. It cannot be said that we can take no ignoble action to achieve noble ends. It cannot either be said that any action must be accepted for noble ends - the question is how noble are the ends, and how ignoble are the means? These questions will and should always be asked.
Intelligence provided was inconclusive - neither confirmed that the weapons were present nor that they were destroyed or removed. Nor did the intelligence confirm that a weapons program had been abandoned by the regime. In fact there was some evidence to the contrary, including Iraq's overtures to Niger in 1999 immediately following the end of UNMOVIC inspections, as reported by Joseph Wilson.
So given the lack of positive or negative confirmation on weapons, a president would have to look at other indicators of whether they had weapons. Those indicators would be:
1. Iraq's response to inspections
2. Iraq's history of armament
3. Iraq's wars of aggression
Given that history, and no confirmation that there were no weapons, could the President rely on the information, and ignore the regime change policy and the potential consequences of ignoring them? He chose not to, and I agree with that choice.
It is true that the assessments were wrong, but there is nothing to show that they were intentionally misleading. The factors above were plain to everyone in the run-up.
It is true that fear of terrorism was used to inspire support for an invasion of Iraq. It is also true that many believed there was a connection between 9/11 and Iraq, but I never believed that, and it was ever purported - only interpreted. When asked plainly if there were a connection the administration never suggested there was.
But if the alternative was to sit back and wait for some act of aggression by Iraq to identify their threat to American interests, I can cite a number of examples where choices of inaction wound up costing much more death and destruction later.
And if the errors of the intelligence community and the president were judged to be so egregious as to suggest that incompetence, a new a regime could have replaced them in 2004. They did not.
I don't believe we can argue we were intentionally mislead, only that the president incorrectly assessed Iraq's WMD, but that was only a part of the context of their decision to pursue regime change. And if the consequences of this mistake are removal of Saddam Hussein, a democratic Iraq, and the restoration of American interests in that region, I accept them.
Yes these consequences also include the deaths of many Iraqi's and Americans, but to a just end, that serves the American interests, and unless it can be proved to me that these consequences were the result of the intent to deceive, I accept them.
Many are concerned with Iraqi lives when they are under threat by Americans, but there was so such concern when they were under threat from Saddam Hussein or the UN sanctions.
And would we have looked back and asked what could have been done, had they continued their historical behavior and sought to aggressively consolidate power in the middle east? Would we be forced to fight a much larger/longer war with more destruction, possibly with the use of a reconstituted WMD arsenal from oil revenue which sure would have returned following the end of sanctions?
There are consequences of actions and inaction. It's harder to assess the consequences of inaction, but they can be equally destructive and damaging.
I just want to add, by the way, that I love this blog.
I'm glad you're enjoying the blog. I've read your last comment, but I'll have to wait until I return from my holiday travels tomorrow to reply. Enjoy an extra day sans Nan :)
On misleading the public on threat of WMD:
The point isn’t that Bush KNEW that there weren’t WMD and told us there were, but rather that he wasn’t sure about WMD but acted as though he was very sure. Despite Tenet’s claim that the case for WMD in Iraq was a ‘slam dunk’ case, evidence was quite unreliable—and they knew it! But Bush made the case to everyone—including his Congress—with such unwavering certainty! Before Powell went to the UN to make their case for war, Secretary Powell was NOT told that one of the important sources he was given as a source of this information had been flagged by the Defense Intelligence Agency as a liar, a fabricator (we know this source now as “Curveball”). This is according to the CIA's chief weapons inspector in Iraq. Bush and his advisors KNEW the intelligence was shaky, but they treated the intelligence with slam dunk status. And despite CIA reports that the al Qaeda-Hussein link was nonexistent, Cheney continued to go on the air leaving the possibility wide open. This should not be separated from the WMD intelligence problem because part of the administration’s claim was that these WMD would soon be slipped into the hands of terrorists. These things, Bush’s Niger claim—which they also knew to be bogus—and previous claims that Hussein was NOT a threat all pile up to one awful truth: Bush didn’t know for sure about WMD (at best), but told us all he did. THAT IS MISLEADING. If it isn’t, then I don’t know what is.
Furthermore, we should not ignore how they misled the public about the cost of the war: We were told by Wolfowitz and others WITH CERTAINTY that invasion and reconstruction would cost no more than 1.8 billion dollars because Iraq could largely fund its own reconstruction. We were told by Cheney and others that it would take 6 months or so and that we would be treated as liberators. We all know how that turned out. (By the way, the administration official who made the 1.8 billion dollar statement is still working, while the official who stated the cost would be closer to 700 billion “resigned” three days after doing so).
My point is supporters of the invasion have profoundly minimized a) the extent to which the administration acted with certainty on that which they knew to be uncertain at best and b) the importance of going to war without being honest about the real level of uncertainty.
On noble means:
You’re free to believe that because their intelligence was shaky (at best) they were still right to invade based on Iraq's response to inspections, Iraq's history of armament, and Iraq's wars of aggression. I believe they were wrong to invade because their intelligence was flawed and they knew it. In fact, I believe that they wouldn’t have been given authorization from the American public and Congress had they not misled us. They overcame this fact of uncertainty by convincing others they were quite certain and by focusing on the other variables you identified. That’s not the way to make a case for killing thousands and spending hundreds of billions of dollars while hurting standards of honesty between branches of government and the global community.
On the noble ends claim:
I didn’t want to do this, but I reject the notion that an invasion in this manner was the only way to accomplish regime change. As it turns out, Clinton’s bombings in the late 1990s crippled their WMD capabilities. According to Bush’s pre-9/11 statements, we had quelled the threat. Though I’m not a fan of waiting people out (e.g. Cuba), there were other policy alternatives that were no more dangerous to our interests as a rushed, poorly planned and weakly organized invasion. You say that “if the consequences of this mistake are removal of Saddam Hussein, a democratic Iraq, and the restoration of American interests in that region, I accept them.” What if the consequences are much worse? What if our inability to forge a powerful alliance and pool resources has already brought an inevitable doom? What if our long-term inability and willingness to domestically fund reconstruction was crippled by the misleading claims of the pre-war/early war White House? In addition to hurting fundamental notions of honesty, maybe the acts of this White House have already undermined the long-term hopes for Iraq. Inaction wasn’t the only other option. Better action may have been.
Finally, I humbly and respectfully reject the notion that “many are concerned with Iraqi lives when they are under threat by Americans, but there was so such concern when they were under threat from Saddam Hussein or the UN sanctions.” Who they’re under threat from and how much concern exists is an oversimplified perspective on the matter. Though I only speak for myself, I believe that most anti-war Americans are well aware of our shared responsibility for the lives of other citizens. We know of our past alliances with Hussein, bin Ladens, the Saudi rulers, etc. As long as our dollars and lives are spent in a manner that intersects our lives with theirs, Americans will vary in degree of concern, but concern will always be there. I watched the Clinton bombings on Baghdad with horror. And I watched Hussein’s capture with relief. Regardless of perceptions of concerns for others, I do believe that war critics in general have feelings consistent with historical fact and not just simple anti-war slogans. For me, the history of Iraq is in part why I’m concerned about our actions—not just because WE’RE acting, but because of how we’re acting and why. Though I admit American capacity and willingness for protest is limited depending on headlines and fads, we should be careful about focusing on change in attention to matter as opposed to an underlined realization of right and wrong.
This is, for now, my last word on this subject. I’ll be posting a new topic soon. Let’s revisit this again later after the Senate Intelligence Committee finishes their intelligence investigation.
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