Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying

The New York Times today puts Mr. Cheney at the center of Plame-gate. This bit of news will not come as a surprise to anyone. The real "news" in the article is buried deep.  The article portrays Mr. Bush as a passive figure in the leaking of a covert CIA agent and a National Intelligence Estimate.

Here is the astonishing passage from the article:

Mr. Libby said he found a way around that resistance by getting backdoor approval from the president. In a hush-hush meeting described in testimony, Mr. Libby asked the vice president’s chief counsel, David S. Addington, whether the president could declassify intelligence personally, effectively without C.I.A. knowledge or approval.

Mr. Addington testified that as he explained to Mr. Libby that indeed the president could do so, Mr. Libby shushed him. “He extended his hands out and pushed down a little like that, that would indicate, ‘Hold your voice down,’ ” Mr. Addington said at the trial. Mr. Libby testified that Mr. Cheney then went to Mr. Bush and got a presidential declassification.

White House officials have said Mr. Bush did not know how Mr. Cheney and Mr. Libby intended to use the intelligence. [Emphasis added by me.]

To paraphrase Mr. Bush: what is worse, the President actively leaking a National Intelligence Estimate or the President declassifying an NIE without knowing why?

If we are to believe the New York Times and the "White House officials", then Mr. Bush is rather careless with this nation’s secrets. The President of the United States declassified a highly classified NIE without discussing it with the intelligence community or without bothering to find out why it should be declassified. The question is not whether the President has the power to do so (he does), the question is of judgment. If Mr. Bush chose to declassify the NIE for political purposes, he has chosen politics over national security. If Mr. Bush chose to declassify the NIE without a valid reason, he has displayed very poor judgment indeed. Either scenario does not put Mr. Bush in a favorable light.

In its attempt to spin a story that keeps Mr. Bush in the dark while throwing Mr. Cheney under the bus, the article also suffers from a timeline problem. According to the article, on July 8 2003, after speaking with Judith Miller, Scooter Libby leaked to Andrea Mitchell later in the day:

Cathie Martin, Mr. Cheney’s former communications director, recalled her discomfort at seeing Mr. Libby reading from the estimate later in the day while he called back reporters covering the story, at Mr. Cheney’s direction, among them Andrea Mitchell of NBC News.

Other senior officials were perplexed when they apparently saw some of Mr. Libby’s handiwork from those phone calls in action. After Ms. Mitchell reported that night on NBC News that “The White House blamed an October C.I.A. report for ignoring Wilson’s information,” the president’s deputy national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, indicated that he had got an earful from Mr. Tenet, according to Ms. Martin’s testimony.

Ms. Martin testified that at a senior staff meeting the following morning Mr. Hadley strongly hinted he thought she was responsible and told her the finger-pointing had been a disservice to the president. According to Ms. Martin’s testimony, Mr. Libby let her take the blame and “looked down” as Mr. Hadley shared his chagrin. Mr. Cheney, she said, later told her not to worry about it. [Emphasis added by me.]

Mr. Hadley is portrayed on July 9 2003 as upset that the NIE was leaked. Yet, the very next day, July 10:

At a meeting on July 10, Mr. Hadley had suggested to Mr. Libby and Mr. Cheney that the intelligence estimate could be leaked to a friendly reporter, Mr. Libby testified that his notes said. But neither he nor Mr. Cheney told Mr. Hadley that they had started trying to do so days earlier. [Emphasis added by me.]

Why the change of heart in a matter of 24 hours? It seems unusual for Mr. Hadley to be upset about the leak one day and then become an advocate of leaking the very next day. It stretches credulity that Mr. Hadley became a sudden convert to leaking overnight.

It is clear that Mr. Cheney was a major player in Plame-gate. However, while the article tries to portray Mr. Bush as a hapless bystander, the chronology of events and Mr. Bush’s own actions, and those of his deputy national security advisor, leave a lot of unanswered questions.

As the White House circles the wagons to contain the Iraq fallout, it is time for the New York Times and the mainstream media to ask hard questions of Mr. Bush. The citizens of this country deserve no less.

Bob Woodward is wrong. Colin Powell is wrong. The National Intelligence Estimate is wrong. Brent Scowcroft is wrong. The retired generals are wrong. Richard Clarke is wrong. The International Atomic Energy Agency is wrong. The United Nations is wrong. Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter and all the Democrats are wrong. Your common sense and all the news you read are wrong.

George W Bush and his dog Barney are right. The last time a man listened to his dog, people got killed. This time is no different.

Bob Woodward’s new book is all over the news these days. CBS just gave him the royal treatment and the Washington Post drooled on its front page. However, judging from Woodward’s 60 Minutes interview and the excerpts that he so graciously shared with us, there is nothing new in it other than the gossip.

The main theme of the book seems to be this: Iraq is going badly and the Bush Administration is pretending otherwise. This is perhaps news only to the ostriches who still hold out hope of finding WMD in Iraq or finding Saddam’s DNA on the 9/11 attack plans. The rest of us have been reading the news, and the news from Iraq speaks of more than 3000 deaths a month in what has been a raging civil war since last spring.

There is also another more slightly less obvious theme to Woodward’s book. That is: George W Bush has been let down by the people who served him, most notably, Donald Rumsfeld. In Woodward’s excerpts, Andy Card does his best to protect his boss:

Card put it on the generals in the Pentagon and Iraq. If they had come forward and said to the president, "It’s not worth it," or, "The mission can’t be accomplished," Card was certain, the president would have said "I’m not going to ask another kid to sacrifice for it."

Card was enough of a realist to see that there were two negative aspects to Bush’s public persona that had come to define his presidency: incompetence and arrogance. Card did not believe that Bush was incompetent, and so he had to face the possibility that, as Bush’s chief of staff, he might have been the incompetent one. In addition, he did not think the president was arrogant.

But the marketing of Bush had come across as arrogant. Maybe it was unfair in Card’s opinion, but there it was.

He was leaving. And the man he considered most responsible for the postwar troubles, the one who should have gone, Rumsfeld, was staying.

So, you see. Mr. Bush was let down. If only Rummy and the generals had told him the facts, he would have steered clear of Iraq.

I would like to step back from the Rummy bashing for a minute and review the facts. In 2000, the American public sort of elected George Walker Bush as the 43rd President of the United States. In 2004, the very same American public, after seeing Bush in action in Afghanistan and Iraq, decided to return George Walker Bush to the White House. The events of 2000 and 2004 lay to rest any doubt that the President of the United States and the Commander in Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces is George W Bush. Not Donald Rumsfeld, not Dick Cheney, not John Abizaid - but, George W Bush.

George W Bush alone is responsible for the carnage in Iraq and the fiasco in Afghanistan. Mr. Bush has made his policy on Iraq quite clear to the American people and the world:

The strategy is to help the Iraqi people achieve their objectives and their dreams, which is a democratic society. That’s the strategy. The tactics — now, either you say, yes, its important we stay there and get it done, or we leave. We’re not leaving, so long as I’m the President. That would be a huge mistake. It would send an unbelievably terrible signal to reformers across the region. It would say we’ve abandoned our desire to change the conditions that create terror. It would give the terrorists a safe haven from which to launch attacks. It would embolden Iran. It would embolden extremists.

No, we’re not leaving. The strategic objective is to help this government succeed. That’s the strategic — and not only to help the government — the reformers in Iraq succeed, but to help the reformers across the region succeed to fight off the elements of extremism. The tactics are which change. Now, if you say, are you going to change your strategic objective, it means you’re leaving before the mission is complete. And we’re not going to leave before the mission is complete. I agree with General Abizaid: We leave before the mission is done, the terrorists will follow us here. [Emphasis added by me.]

Mr. Bush intends to stay because he does not want to send a "signal" to the "reformers" and the terrorists. But, just what kind of signal is he sending by staying? What does it say about the power of the United States that as an occupying power in Iraq it cannot contain unchecked violence that is claiming thousands of lives each month? What does it say about the power of the United States that five years after 9/11 Osama bin Laden is still at large and the Taliban are back in business in Afghanistan? What does it say about the power of the United States that Mr. Bush’s favorite general is surrendering to al Qaeda and the Taliban?

The signal Mr. Bush’s warmongering in Iraq and his neglect of Afghanistan is sending to the world is that the United States is weak and the American military can be stalemated with rudimentary battle tactics. That is a far more dangerous legacy than the withdrawal from Somalia in 1993.

Mr. Bush nonetheless has decided to stay in Iraq because to him perception is more important than reality. It is more important to Mr. Bush to be perceived as steadfast than to actually succeed in Iraq. American soldiers and Iraqi civilians are paying with their lives to maintain what Mr. Bush perceives as manhood. However, what Mr. Bush perceives as "staying the course" is really foolishness. Mr. Bush claims that he will not leave Iraq even if his only two supporters are his wife and his dog. Well, that is just stupid - if not dictatorial. I doubt that the next President will continue to stay in Iraq without any public support. Mr. Bush then has effectively set the deadline for an American pullout from Iraq to 2008. So, has Mr. Bush really served the interests of the United States by "staying the course" only to be reversed by his successor? By staying in Iraq, Mr. Bush is putting his ego above the national interest of the United States - that is simply disgraceful.

Iraq is George W Bush’s war. Donald Rumsfeld may end up taking the fall for Mr. Bush’s folly in the near term, but there is no mistaking who it was that sent our men and women into battle on March 19, 2003. With the following words spoken from the Oval Office, it was Mr. Bush who spilled American and Iraqi blood:

My fellow citizens, at this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.

On my orders, coalition forces have begun striking selected targets of military importance to undermine Saddam Hussein’s ability to wage war. These are opening stages of what will be a broad and concerted campaign.

…

We come to Iraq with respect for its citizens, for their great civilization and for the religious faiths they practice. We have no ambition in Iraq, except to remove a threat and restore control of that country to its own people.

…

Our nation enters this conflict reluctantly — yet, our purpose is sure. The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder.

…

Now that conflict has come, the only way to limit its duration is to apply decisive force. And I assure you, this will not be a campaign of half measures, and we will accept no outcome but victory. [Emphasis added by me.]

We are where we are because of Mr. Bush’s "order".We are living today in the chaos of Mr. Bush’s war.