>From the article:
THE POLITICAL WAR
Issue of 2004-09-27
Posted 2004-09-20
Earlier this year, the United States Agency for International
Development, or U.S.A.I.D., hired a team of independent experts to go
to Iraq and evaluate the agency's programs there. The experts came
back with a mixed review that included plenty of reason for worry: the
reconstruction of Iraq was taking place in an ad-hoc fashion, without
a consistent strategy, without the meaningful participation or advice
of Iraqis, within paralyzing security constraints, and amid
unrealistic claims of success. But something happened to the report on
the way to publication. U.S.A.I.D. kept sending parts of it back for
revision, draft after draft, weeding out criticism, until the agency
finally approved a version for internal use which one member of the
team called "a whitewash" of his findings. Another expert said, "It's
so political, everything going on out there. They just didn't want to
hear any bad news." Pointing out that some of the numbers posted on
the agency's Web site were overly optimistic, he concluded, "They like
to make their sausage their way."
This would be a minor footnote in the history of the Iraq war, if only
the entire story didn't read the same. President Bush has been making
the sausage his way from the beginning, and his way is to politicize.
He forced a congressional vote on the war just before the 2002 midterm
elections. He trumpeted selective and misleading intelligence. He
displayed intense devotion to classifying government documents, except
when there was political advantage in declassifying them. He fired or
sidelined government officials and military officers who told the
American public what the Administration didn't want it to hear. He
released forecasts of the war's cost that quickly became obsolete, and
then he ignored the need for massive expenditures until a crucial half
year in Iraq had been lost. His communications office in Baghdad
issued frequently incredible accounts of the progress of the war and
the reconstruction. He staffed the occupation with large numbers of
political loyalists who turned out to be incompetent. According to
Marine officers and American officials in Iraq, he ordered and then
called off critical military operations in Falluja against the wishes
of his commanders, with no apparent strategic plan. He made sure that
blame for the abuses at Abu Ghraib settled almost entirely on the
shoulders of low-ranking troops. And then, in the middle of the
election campaign, he changed the subject.
No one can now doubt the effectiveness of the President's political
operation. Here's one measure: between May and September, the number
of Iraq stories that made page 1 of the Times and the Washington Post
dropped by more than a third. During the same period, the percentage
of Americans who support the President's handling of the war
increased. It's the mark of a truly brilliant re�lection campaign that
these trends at home are occurring against a background of
ever-increasing violence and despair in Iraq. The latest reports from
mainstream think tanks, such as the Center for Strategic and
International Studies, show every indicator of progress moving in the
wrong direction. In July, the National Intelligence Council issued a
classified and quite gloomy analysis of Iraq which had no effect on
the President's rhetoric or on his policy. After a year and a half of
improvising and muddling through, there seems to be no clear way
forward and no good way out. But because the President�as his chief of
staff, Andrew Card, recently said�regards Americans as ten-year-old
children, don't expect to hear an honest discussion about any of this
from the White House. (The President's party, however, is trying to
force congress to vote, just before the election, on a constitutional
amendment to ban flag burning�no doubt to bring the country a little
closer to victory in Iraq.)
The problem with making sausage the President's way�other than the
fact that it deceives the public, precludes a serious debate, bitterly
divides the body politic when war requires unity, exposes American
soldiers to greater risk, substitutes half measures for thoroughgoing
efforts, and insures that no one will be held accountable for mistakes
that will never be corrected�is that it doesn't work. What determines
success in this war is what happens in Iraq and how Iraqis perceive
it. If U.S.A.I.D. releases a report that prettifies the truth,
officials here might breathe easier for a while, but it won't speed up
the reconstruction of Iraq. Covering up failures only widens the gap
in perception between Washington and Baghdad�which, in turn, makes
Washington less capable of grasping the reality of Iraq and responding
to it. Eventually, the failures announce themselves anyway�in a series
of suicide bombings, a slow attrition of Iraqi confidence, a sudden
insurrection. War, unlike budget forecasts and campaign coverage, is
quite merciless with falsehood.
In refusing to look at Iraq honestly, President Bush has made defeat
there more likely. This failing is only the most important repetition
of a recurring theme in the war against radical Islam: the distance
between Bush's soaring, often inspiring language and the insufficiency
of his actions. When he speaks, as he did at the Republican
Convention, about the power of freedom to change the world, he is
sounding deep notes in the American political psyche. His opponent
comes nowhere close to making such music. But if Iraq looks nothing
like the President's vision�if Iraq is visibly deteriorating, and no
one in authority will admit it�the speeches can produce only illusion
or cynicism. In what may be an extended case of overcompensation, so
much of the President's conduct in the war has become an assertion of
personal will. Bush's wartime hero, Winston Churchill, offered his
countrymen nothing but blood, toil, tears, and sweat. Bush offers
optimistic forecasts, permanent tax cuts, and his own stirring
resolve.
As the campaign moves toward its finish, Senator Kerry seems unable to
point any of this out, let alone exploit it. On Iraq, he has said
almost everything possible, which makes it difficult for him to say
anything. It's understandable that the war fills him with ambivalence.
The President's actions have led the country into a blind alley;
there's no new strategy for Kerry to propose, and the press should
stop insisting that he come up with one when the candidate who started
the war feels no such obligation. But the Senator has allowed the
public to think that the President, against all the evidence of his
record, will fight the war in Iraq and the larger war against radical
Islam with more success. If Kerry loses the election, this will be the
reason.
� George Packer
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