Bush, still trying to sell war: Part Two (10/10/2006)

President Bush still is trying to sell the Iraq war as the way to stop terrorism. But, that war is going badly, and so is the war in Afghanistan. And the NIE, or National Intelligence Estimate, a combined report of our 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, is dire. It finds that the Iraq war is “the cause celebre for jihadists, breeding deep resentment of U.S. involvement in the Muslim world, and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement.” And that movement, fueled by the ongoing war, is likely to grow faster than our ability to counter it. An angry Bush, forced to reveal some portions of the report, whines: “Somebody has taken it upon themselves to leak classified information for political purposes.”

Bush’s rant about leaking classified information for political purposes reeks of hypocrisy. Remember “Scooter” Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Cheney? He testified to the grand jury that he had received approval from the President, through the Vice President, to divulge portions of a classified NIE report to defend Bush’s decision to go to war. Libby had blown covert agent Valerie Plame’s cover in order to punish her husband, Joseph Wilson. Wilson had written a column on how Bush misused faulty intelligence to make a case for war on Iraq. Bush claims he alone, without any other approval, can declassify information. So here’s his rationale. When it suits Bush’s personal agenda, he can declassify information and use certain sections to mislead the public. But when this year’s NIE report was leaked and shows that the Iraq war is actually increasing terrorism, Bush scathingly denounces this leak as “political.” Bush’s idea of democracy seems to include a totalitarian presidency. That is, he will decide what we can know, or NOT know. He calls himself “the decider.” Now we see what he means by that.

Bush insists he has made us safer: “because of our successes…the enemy is becoming more diffuse and independent.” Successes? He’d better read the 2006 NIE report on terror estimates. Based on the newly declassified information, the administration has failed to contain terrorism, even by its own standards. In a 2003 memo, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld had posed the question: “Is Washington’s strategy successfully killing or capturing terrorists faster than new enemies are being created?” Well, he has the answer now, and it’s NO.

But “stay the course” remains the administration’s mantra. Should we really “stay the course,” when the war has no end in sight and it expands terrorism? In another desperate attempt to sell the war, the Bush administration tried to swiftboat their opposition by comparing war critics to Nazi appeasers. But, since the Bushies have raised the Nazi image, let’s consider a statement from Hitler’s Reichmarshal Hermann Goering: “Naturally the common people don’t want war, but the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”

So are you still buying Bush’s version of the Iraq war and that it has made us safer? Bruce Hoffman, professor of security studies at Georgetown University, sums up the NIE report: ”I guess the overall conclusion that you get from it is that we don’t have enough bullets, given all the enemies we are creating.” There’s an election November 7; where do your candidates stand?

- Judith Kohler

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