Bush said he couldn’t imagine planes being turned into missiles and flown into buildings, a statement that, if he read the newspapers, he would realize had been rescinded by his national-security adviser. That scenario was routinely envisioned, though on a lesser scale than 9/11, whenever there was a high-profile event, like the Olympics or a visit from the pope, former FBI director Louis Freeh testified this week.
Bush also clings to the fiction that finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is still a prospect, citing the recent discovery of mustard gas buried on a turkey farm in Libya. Who is feeding Bush such claptrap? “A president is only as good as the information he is given,” says Jack Valenti, who was in the White House with Lyndon Johnson when Vietnam was raging. What Valenti remembers most from the meetings he attended is how wrong the military assessments turned out to be once they were filtered up from the field to Saigon to the Pentagon. By the time they reached LBJ, there was a light at the end of the tunnel.
It was painful to watch Bush rummage through his store of pat comments as reporters pressed him to acknowledge mistakes he made in a war that seems close to spinning out of control. Maybe if he’d gotten the question in advance, he suggested at one point, pleading for mercy since nothing was popping into his head with all the pressure of the press conference. He dodged a question about why he had to appear with his vice president when he testifies before the 9/11 commission, but his performance spoke for itself. The man is limited in his ability to express himself and, sadly, in his grasp of the situation unfolding around him.
What was missing from that press conference was a call for sacrifice, or any kind of reality check. Stabilizing Iraq will take more than extending the tours of 20,000 troops. It will require a re-ordering of commitments around the world, a serious effort short of a draft to expand the military, and maybe even–gasp–reassessing the tax cuts that mostly benefit the wealthy. The only Americans who are sacrificing are the troops. Homilies about winning freedom do little to ease the burden on the middle and lower-income families whose children are dying, and who are also feeling the economic squeeze.
If you supported the war and think Bush is right, he was at his best conveying his determination to stay the course. But what course? When the head of the U.S. occupying authority, Paul Bremer, was asked which entity the Americans would transfer authority to on June 30, he responded: “That’s a good question.” It’s apparent the administration has lost control of the political developments in Iraq. The news that Iranian government officials are in Baghdad helping mediate a deal between U.S. forces and the rebel Shiite cleric, Moqtada al-Sadr, caused heartburn on Capitol Hill. A Republican policymaker wonders if Bush has forgotten Iran is part of the axis of evil. “Did we invade Iraq to get a mini-Iran?” he exclaimed. “What’s next? The North Koreans do Fallujah?”
We learned from the 9/11 commission hearings that if you don’t shake the bureaucratic tree, you don’t get results. If Bush wasn’t curious about bin Laden seeking to strike inside the United States, is he curious about the nuances between the Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds? His comment in the press conference about it being God’s calling to bring freedom to every man and woman evokes the imagery of a crusade based on belief rather than reason.
What few friends Bush had in the Middle East he lost this week when without warning he overturned decades of U.S. policy to unequivocally side with Israel. Bush admires the bold stroke and he rewarded Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s willingness to withdraw from the Gaza Strip by unilaterally endorsing Sharon’s plan to retain key Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The timing is terrible. As U.S. troops struggle to put down the insurgency in Iraq, bin Laden can point to the alliance between the U.S. and Israel, and recruit more radical Islamists for the holy war.
Bush wanted to bolster Sharon, who faces a plebiscite on his Gaza plan later this month along with a possible indictment on corruption charges. Sharon, a gruff, bullying figure, persuaded Bush that without his public endorsement, he might not survive. Is it worth the backlash in the Arab world to send a lifeline to Sharon? The answer is no from a geopolitical standpoint, but yes when Karl Rove’s November playbook is taken into account. If Bush can get his share of the Jewish vote up from one quarter to one third, that could mean the election. Bush may not be much of a conceptual thinker, but he knows how to count.
