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COMMENTARY
April 17, 2004
Looking back
Does the White House acknowledge mistakes? They would be crazy to offer up talking points to the Democrats but my impression from such contacts as I have is that senior people in the Bush administration regret a short list of tactical errors. One of them is certainly the emphasis they placed on over-specific "WMD" charges before the invasion. But they don't regret having tried to walk their argument through the United Nations and they remain more charitably disposed to that organization than for instance I am. Indeed they are all ears for the proposals Lakhdar Brahimi the U.N.'s point man for Iraq has made about transitional plans to Iraqi self-government and are acting quickly on most of them. Other regrets are over things that were never visible to the outside world. Backstage during the invasion and immediately after there were all kinds of bureaucratic snafus. Moneys urgently needed for various crucial reconstruction efforts got snagged in red tape sometimes for months. And in the heat of the invasion itself and in its immediate wake the administration was so sincerely convinced that it would face WMD attacks and related humanitarian crises -- threats that never materialized -- that their most concentrated efforts at cutting through the tape were wasted. In particular it now appears that systematic and quite purposeful looting by Saddamites in government ministries in the moments after Baghdad fell deprived the U.S. and allies of a large store of useful information. Armed with that they could have rounded up a whole lot of bad guys a whole lot faster. The Bush people do not acknowledge however -- I think even to themselves -- their worst administrative failure. This was a State Department talking machine and a Pentagon war machine that were too often working at cross purposes. Mr. Bush though admirably decisive (and seldom wrong) on major tactical questions and even more on strategic (where in my opinion his vision is imperfect but will serve) characteristically refuses to intervene in the interdepartmental stuff. But the result of that was a State Department working on one plan for Iraq's political and material reconstruction while the Pentagon worked on another. State tends to win on diplomatic questions the Pentagon on military naturally enough; but in the case of Iraq the Pentagon has had clearer-sighted views in both areas -- especially when it comes to distinguishing friends from enemies. If the Pentagon had had its way the troubles encountered in places such as Fallujah and Kufa and Kut and Karbala would have been confronted earlier and more effectively. And the warning shots that were needed towards Iran Syria and even Saudi Arabia as they sent their proxies across Iraq's vast frontiers would have been delivered. "Less pain now for more pain later" might as well be the motto of the State Department as of most foreign offices. This is all very well in peacetime but the U.S. has been at war. The Bush people are proud of much heavy lifting in intelligence and secret operations. They have cracked some very thick bureaucratic ostrich eggs to make the omelette of a new unified intelligence command with its apex in the White House itself. This was necessary; but in the clear light of hindsight it was also necessary to replace men like George Tenet (the CIA director) and Robert Mueller (the FBI's) with more Churchillian appointments. The culture of the five-year plan has adapted too easily to its new more capacious offices. Yet as John Keegan and others have argued and I have been slow to see the role of intelligence in warfare is much over-rated. There will always be plenty you can't know about the enemy and often one's sheer ignorance confers the benefit of surprise. More important than understanding the enemy is the willingness to destroy him -- and this has been the Bush administration's strong suite. Any U.S. government will be at sea in the bazaar-like world of the Middle East unable to choose between conflicting expert advisers. You can't be American and fully understand how an Arab mind works; and vice versa. I am myself convinced the Europeans have a better insight into conditions on the ground in Iraq and elsewhere. But their knowledge vitiates their will. And since the purpose of this exercise is to impose our will over the enemy's there is much to be said for a certain blind aggression. It would now be most usefully employed beyond the borders of Iraq since Iraq has been effectively neutralized as a direct security threat to the U.S. and its allies (or ally) in the region. The project of bringing democracy to Iraq has been exposed as a vanity; it is only necessary to keep Iraq reasonably benign while maintaining the appearance of not wavering. Iran and Hezbollah are emerging -- in more or less active cooperation with Sunni terror cells associated with Al Qaeda and Hamas -- as the enemy's sharp edge. A greater willingness to confront Iran's unpopular ayatollahs is needed now before they can flourish nuclear weapons. But the U.S. presidential election has made the Bush administration dangerously risk-averse at the very moment when U.S. (and thus ultimately Western) interests need another bold vindication. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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