Mr-Blonde
10-26-2005, 05:34 PM
Frank Rich's op-ed in Sunday's New York Times (http://select.nytimes.com/gst/tsc.html?URI=http://select.nytimes.com/2005/10/23/opinion/23rich.html&OQ=hp&OP=fe6dfQ2F4B@a4Q23LrQ24Q24Q234IssR4bs4ID4Q24VQ2FS Q2FQ24S4IDrQ2FyXwXQ23Q3BQ2B), begins with a question:
Bush's Iraq War: Was it Worth it?
"THERE were no weapons of mass destruction. There was no collaboration between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda on 9/11. There was scant Pentagon planning for securing the peace should bad stuff happen after America invaded. Why, exactly, did we go to war in Iraq?"
His answer: politicians Bush and Rove "wanted...slam-dunk midterm election victories" and neocon hawks Cheney, Libby, Wolfowitz, and Feith wanted " a war in Iraq for reasons predating 9/11....Abstract (and highly debatable) neocon notions of marching to Baghdad to make the Middle East safe for democracy (and more secure for Israel and uninterrupted oil production)."
Because it was determined that neither Bush-Rove's political goals nor the neocon hawks' mercenary and ideological goals could be sold to the American people as reasons for sacrificing the lives of Americans, Allies, and Iraqis, "fictional, more salable" reasons for going to war had to be manufactured and contradictory intelligence had to be "dismissed or suppressed." Hence, "bogus WMD intelligence," fictions about Saddam and 9/11, and meaningless connections between Saddam and Al Qaeda.
In order to make this political-mercenary-ideological distortion of reality work, the Bush Administration depended upon the political self-interest of members of Congress (see John Kerry and the Dems), the easily-manipulated mainstream media (see Judith Miller and the New York Times), and the gullibility of the American public (see war polls and Fox News). Rich concludes, any PlameGate "crime would seem a misdemeanor next to the fables that [Libby, Rove,] and their bosses fed the nation and the world as the whys for invading Iraq."
As James Mann details in his definitive group biography of the Bush war cabinet, "Rise of the Vulcans," Mr. Libby had been joined at the hip with Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz since their service in the Defense Department of the Bush 41 administration, where they conceived the neoconservative manifesto for the buildup and exercise of unilateral American military power after the cold war. Well before Bush 43 took office, they had become fixated on Iraq, though for reasons having much to do with their ideas about realigning the states in the Middle East and little or nothing to do with the stateless terrorism of Al Qaeda. Mr. Bush had specifically disdained such interventionism when running against Al Gore, but he embraced the cause once in office. While others might have had cavils - American military commanders testified before Congress about their already overtaxed troops and equipment in March 2002 - the path was clear for a war in Iraq to serve as the political Viagra Mr. Rove needed for the election year.
But here, too, was an impediment: there had to be that "why" for the invasion, the very why that today can seem so elusive that [George] Packer [in his book, The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq"] calls Iraq "the 'Rashomon' of wars." Abstract (and highly debatable) neocon notions of marching to Baghdad to make the Middle East safe for democracy (and more secure for Israel and uninterrupted oil production) would never fly with American voters as a trigger for war or convince them that such a war was relevant to the fight against those who attacked us on 9/11. And though Americans knew Saddam was a despot and mass murderer, that in itself was also insufficient to ignite a popular groundswell for regime change. Polls in the summer of 2002 showed steadily declining support among Americans for going to war in Iraq, especially if we were to go it alone.
For Mr. Rove and Mr. Bush to get what they wanted most, slam-dunk midterm election victories, and for Mr. Libby and Mr. Cheney to get what they wanted most, a war in Iraq for reasons predating 9/11, their real whys for going to war had to be replaced by fictional, more salable ones. We wouldn't be invading Iraq to further Rovian domestic politics or neocon ideology; we'd be doing so instead because there was a direct connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda and because Saddam was on the verge of attacking America with nuclear weapons. The facts and intelligence had to be fixed to create these whys; any contradictory evidence had to be dismissed or suppressed.
Mr. Libby and Mr. Cheney were in the boiler room of the disinformation factory. The vice president's repetitive hyping of Saddam's nuclear ambitions in the summer and fall of 2002 as well as his persistence in advertising bogus Saddam-Qaeda ties were fed by the rogue intelligence operation set up in his own office. As we know from many journalistic accounts, Mr. Cheney and Mr. Libby built their "case" by often making an end run around the C.I.A., State Department intelligence and the Defense Intelligence Agency. Their ally in cherry-picking intelligence was a similar cadre of neocon zealots led by Douglas Feith at the Pentagon.
Bush's Iraq War: Was it Worth it?
"THERE were no weapons of mass destruction. There was no collaboration between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda on 9/11. There was scant Pentagon planning for securing the peace should bad stuff happen after America invaded. Why, exactly, did we go to war in Iraq?"
His answer: politicians Bush and Rove "wanted...slam-dunk midterm election victories" and neocon hawks Cheney, Libby, Wolfowitz, and Feith wanted " a war in Iraq for reasons predating 9/11....Abstract (and highly debatable) neocon notions of marching to Baghdad to make the Middle East safe for democracy (and more secure for Israel and uninterrupted oil production)."
Because it was determined that neither Bush-Rove's political goals nor the neocon hawks' mercenary and ideological goals could be sold to the American people as reasons for sacrificing the lives of Americans, Allies, and Iraqis, "fictional, more salable" reasons for going to war had to be manufactured and contradictory intelligence had to be "dismissed or suppressed." Hence, "bogus WMD intelligence," fictions about Saddam and 9/11, and meaningless connections between Saddam and Al Qaeda.
In order to make this political-mercenary-ideological distortion of reality work, the Bush Administration depended upon the political self-interest of members of Congress (see John Kerry and the Dems), the easily-manipulated mainstream media (see Judith Miller and the New York Times), and the gullibility of the American public (see war polls and Fox News). Rich concludes, any PlameGate "crime would seem a misdemeanor next to the fables that [Libby, Rove,] and their bosses fed the nation and the world as the whys for invading Iraq."
As James Mann details in his definitive group biography of the Bush war cabinet, "Rise of the Vulcans," Mr. Libby had been joined at the hip with Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz since their service in the Defense Department of the Bush 41 administration, where they conceived the neoconservative manifesto for the buildup and exercise of unilateral American military power after the cold war. Well before Bush 43 took office, they had become fixated on Iraq, though for reasons having much to do with their ideas about realigning the states in the Middle East and little or nothing to do with the stateless terrorism of Al Qaeda. Mr. Bush had specifically disdained such interventionism when running against Al Gore, but he embraced the cause once in office. While others might have had cavils - American military commanders testified before Congress about their already overtaxed troops and equipment in March 2002 - the path was clear for a war in Iraq to serve as the political Viagra Mr. Rove needed for the election year.
But here, too, was an impediment: there had to be that "why" for the invasion, the very why that today can seem so elusive that [George] Packer [in his book, The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq"] calls Iraq "the 'Rashomon' of wars." Abstract (and highly debatable) neocon notions of marching to Baghdad to make the Middle East safe for democracy (and more secure for Israel and uninterrupted oil production) would never fly with American voters as a trigger for war or convince them that such a war was relevant to the fight against those who attacked us on 9/11. And though Americans knew Saddam was a despot and mass murderer, that in itself was also insufficient to ignite a popular groundswell for regime change. Polls in the summer of 2002 showed steadily declining support among Americans for going to war in Iraq, especially if we were to go it alone.
For Mr. Rove and Mr. Bush to get what they wanted most, slam-dunk midterm election victories, and for Mr. Libby and Mr. Cheney to get what they wanted most, a war in Iraq for reasons predating 9/11, their real whys for going to war had to be replaced by fictional, more salable ones. We wouldn't be invading Iraq to further Rovian domestic politics or neocon ideology; we'd be doing so instead because there was a direct connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda and because Saddam was on the verge of attacking America with nuclear weapons. The facts and intelligence had to be fixed to create these whys; any contradictory evidence had to be dismissed or suppressed.
Mr. Libby and Mr. Cheney were in the boiler room of the disinformation factory. The vice president's repetitive hyping of Saddam's nuclear ambitions in the summer and fall of 2002 as well as his persistence in advertising bogus Saddam-Qaeda ties were fed by the rogue intelligence operation set up in his own office. As we know from many journalistic accounts, Mr. Cheney and Mr. Libby built their "case" by often making an end run around the C.I.A., State Department intelligence and the Defense Intelligence Agency. Their ally in cherry-picking intelligence was a similar cadre of neocon zealots led by Douglas Feith at the Pentagon.