America: Shocked and Awed

Has it really been five years since Bush blindly took us to war against Iraq?

Other bloggers (no link required) have catalogued the litany of rosy scenarios put forth by Bush, Cheney, McCain and all the others. Remember how easy it would be to invade Iraq, overthrow its dictator, install a new government, and pump that oil at 1990s prices? The sad thing is that so many Americans believed the bullshit. I can state, with complete honesty, that I was never for it. The invasion and the overthrowing would be the easy part, but I knew that creating a new functioning government and society would be extremely difficult. And I didn't need to read a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) to tell me that.

White House mouthpiece Michael Gordon of the New York Times wrote an interesting piece a few days ago which blames Paul Bremer, not Bush, for disbanding the Iraqi army, a decision which the CW declares to have been pretty stupid:

Mr. Bremer’s decree reversed an earlier plan — one that would have relied on the Iraqi military to help secure and rebuild the country, and had been approved at a White House meeting that Mr. Bush convened just 10 weeks earlier.

According to the article, on March 12, 2003, Bush approved a plan that includes using the Iraq military as a building-block of a new Iraqi society. On May 22, 2003, Bush approves the dismantling of the Iraqi article and no one raises a peep:

while Mr. Bush endorsed Mr. Bremer’s plan in the May 22 meeting, the decision was made without thorough consultations within government, and without the counsel of the secretary of state or the senior American commander in Iraq, said the commander, Lt. Gen. David D. McKiernan.

So, what happened? According to Gordon:

Mr. Bremer, through a videoconference, was part of a National Security Council meeting held in the White House Situation Room, and said that he was planning to issue the decree disbanding the army. Mr. Bush seemed satisfied, and no officials spoke up to object, according to Mr. Bremer and other participants.

Well, who was at the meeting? Colin Powell was in Paris--on business, I presume--and so could not attend. Here's Powell's take on the record:

Mr. Powell, who views the decree as a major blunder, later asked Condoleezza Rice, who was serving as Mr. Bush’s national security adviser, for an explanation.

“I talked to Rice and said, ‘Condi, what happened?’ ” he recalled. “And her reaction was: ‘I was surprised too, but it is a decision that has been made and the president is standing behind Jerry’s decision. Jerry is the guy on the ground.’ And there was no further debate about it.”

Sounds like another neo-con plot gone awry. Rumsfeld informally approved the the dismantling before the videocon with Bush. Given Cheney's mastery of bureaucratic infighting, he probably waited until Powell was out of the country to put this issue before Bush. Bush either didn't really pay much attention to the "plan" in the first place and so didn't think it would be a big deal or he was too simpleminded to understand its implications. Assuming Rice told the truth to Powell that she did not know in advance, she was too much of a lightweight to incur the wrath of Cheney and Rumseld, so she asked no serious questions. Her line to Powell that she was caught by surprise is pracically malpractice. As the President's National Security Advisor, how does she not know in advance the agenda of a national security meeting and weigh in?

But enough about Iraq....let's talk about Vietnam. After Vietnam, the American public was painfully aware of the human and social costs to a failed war. So the public was skeptical of all military involvement. If you recall, even Reagan's actions in Grenada and against Libya were controversial. However, Panama stirred people up with the yellow ribbons and made people "proud to be Americans (again)".

After Panama came the Gulf War, which also came with pretty, pretty ribbons, and few physical casualties. Then, thanks to Bill Clinton, the public was introduced to war by remote control--namely, the Kosovo War. War was no longer a bloody, dirty, painful thing for society. It became a sport! Go America!

For the first time in American history, the public was for military intervention against anyone. So when Bush said in March, "let's get rid of Saddam," the public responded, "yeah, sure, I'm not watching baseball anymore and football season doesn't start 'til September, so I could watch a good war on TV". (Plus, there was that whole September 11th thing that made it really easy to lump all Arab countries together--I'll leave that theme to other bloggers.)

So, where are we now? The good news is that the public might want to think about the consequences before it supports military involvement. The bad news is that when the national interest truly requires military action, the public may not be on-board.