Common Dreams / Published on Wednesday, July 23, 2003 by the Guardianby Simon Tisdall
Iraq is providing the Bush administration with some hard and necessary lessons. One home truth is that frightening the voters only works for a while. George Bush & Co put a great deal of effort into persuading Americans that Saddam Hussein posed a direct threat to home, high school, family SUV and, generally, to the American way of life. Lest we forget, Bush claimed at one point that unmanned aerial vehicles could menace US cities with biological or chemical weapons. Dick Cheney went bigger than big on the supposed Iraqi nuclear threat. Bush adopted the notorious Blair-Campbell "45 minutes to Armageddon" one-liner, as well as the exotic Niger yellowcake fairytale.
Yet nearly two years after 9/11; after two all-out wars; after a deal of extra-judicial killing and illegal incarceration; after attorney-general John Ashcroft's faith-led subversion of the US constitution; and three months after Saddam joined Osama bin Laden and the Taliban's Mullah Omar in the displaced-but-not-deleted category - do Americans really feel any safer?
Many voters must wonder, with Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry, whether increased resources for airline and border security, police, firefighters and a more effective FBI might not be a better bet than spending $3.9bn a month on occupying a country that does not want to be occupied. That total does not include the Afghan quagmire - or the human and political cost of daily US casualties. Another White House contender, Dick Gephardt, says a "macho" Bush has left the US "less safe and less secure".
Even Bush's most obliviously hawkish officials have given up claiming that toppling Saddam has somehow reduced the al-Qaida threat. It is still out there - and may be intensifying.
A long-obstructed congressional report into 9/11 due this week identifies a startling string of prior intelligence failures. It suggests a Saudi government link with the hijackers, criticizes the Pentagon and CIA and implies that the FBI "doesn't have a clue about terrorism", according to a Newsweek report. But what remains in serious doubt is whether Bush has taken effective steps to ensure that what were systemic, not simply one-off failures, do not reoccur.
The Riyadh bombing in May, the current Taliban/al-Qaida resurgence in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and this week's Saudi anti-terror purges show how serious the threat still is. "New instability in Afghanistan and the continued spread of jihadist ideology mean that the prospects for another September 11 are growing," security analysts Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon commented in the New York Times this week. "America ... still lacks a comprehensive program to deal with a growing global insurgency."
If al-Qaida were successfully to mount another large-scale attack within the US, where would that leave Bush? Victimizing Iran, Syria or North Korea or some other hapless "rogue" would not save his political skin a second time around. Rather, Bush would be left looking like a blusterer who put the frighteners on his own people but failed in his primary duty to protect.
Veteran pollster Stanley Greenberg told the Los Angeles Times this week that confidence in Bush's conduct of his "war on terror" is slipping. "There is an erosion of trust ... I think this is already adding up to something quite big."
Maybe it is Bush who should be frightened now. His and Cheney's ever-ready willingness to scare the children and drape themselves in the flag may not be enough for voters in a 2004 election focused on largely economic issues.
The enormous cost of Iraq, put at $50bn and rising, is feeding into broader worries about Bush's overall economic competence. This is the man, remember, who has forced through a $350bn tax cut for the rich amid increased unemployment, state spending cuts and record deficits. Bush is launching a month-long "economic recovery" speaking campaign this week. He may be realizing belatedly that people's day-to-day economic security is at least as important to them as state security.
Another Iraq lesson, to paraphrase a more eminent Republican president, is that you can fool some people indefinitely, but not all the people all the time. Senate Republicans irresponsibly blocked a proposal last week for an investigation into administration handling, or mishandling, of pre-war intelligence.
But that will not quell the growing clamor, echoing the uproar in Britain, that much of what the American public was told about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction was sexed up, blown up or just plain made up. This is not merely a question of imaginary, anthrax-armed Scuds. It is a fundamental question of truth and integrity in governance.
The defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said last winter that the US had "bullet-proof evidence" of an al-Qaida/ Saddam connection. Even by blowhard Don's dodgy standards, this whopper was truly epic. Not a scintilla of proof has been found, nor is it likely to be now.
Rumsfeld also bears responsibility for the chronic post-war planning fiasco that has led to avoidable large-scale destruction, bureaucratic chaos, the alienation of ordinary Iraqis and now to an ongoing guerrilla war. He continues to insist that Iraq is a success story. He must think Americans are stupid.
Many now suspect that Bush privately decided to attack Iraq in spring-summer 2002, and then spent six months telling Americans (and gullible or complicit allies such as Tony Blair) that war was not inevitable - when it was. If true, that would be the biggest lie of all.
Voters like being taken for suckers even less than they like incompetence at the top. A recent Washington Post/ABC poll found that 50% now believe Bush exaggerated the WMD evidence. Only 55% (and falling) still think the war was worth it. A CBS poll suggested a majority would deem the war wrong if the WMD claims were unfounded. These figures imply a big turnaround. They indicate that an indefinite Iraq occupation will be increasingly unpopular; they may spell big trouble in next year's hustings. Democrat Joe Biden gives the Bushies 90 days to get on top of things in Iraq."We're not gods," America's greatest living genius, deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz said plaintively in Mosul this week. Actually, nobody dreamed they were. The mortal question is, are they honest?
A broader lesson comes directly from Iraq itself. It concerns the limitations of military power. Nobody but a few batty Ba'athists seriously doubted that the US could win its victory. But many warned that the US by itself, even with plucky Britain at its side, could not win the peace. As it hemorrhages men and money, Bush is beginning to grasp that the US needs the much-abused UN - badly. It needs a new UN mandate authorizing countries to send peacekeeping troops to help pull Bush out of his hole. The UN's guidance is also needed to help Iraqis take charge of constitutional, electoral and judicial reform.
With Iraqi oil revenues coming nowhere close to reconstruction requirements, the US needs UN authority to attract foreign funds - or else those funds may never come. And if Bush (and Blair) are ever to escape the WMD miasma, they must allow the UN inspectors back. Only their independent verdict will suffice.
For Bush, Iraq's lessons are becoming clear - if he has the sense to see them. The world community works together - or it doesn't work. And the American people don't like being taken for mugs.
