Bush creates diversions as news outflanks him
Palm Beach Post
Thursday, October 28, 2004
The United States is in Iraq because ________.
President Bush has been erasing his answers and writing new ones since before the invasion began. A recent answer is: To capture or kill Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Zarqawi is the Jordanian-born terrorist responsible for bombings, ambushes and beheadings. President Bush put Zarqawi at the top of his list to answer Sen. John Kerry's charge that Iraq is a distraction from the war on terror. That was before news reports revealed that poor decisions by President Bush have given Zarqawi the scope and possibly the munitions he needs to attack American and Iraqi forces.
The Wall Street Journal reported this week that in 2002 and 2003, President Bush turned down the Pentagon's request to hit Zarqawi in a remote training camp. The Los Angeles Times described how Mr. Bush backed off this spring from the military operation to push Zarqawi and others from Fallujah, where Zarqawi now is based.
In addition, The New York Times reported that U.S. troops failed to protect nearly 400 tons of high explosives that were looted from the huge Al-Qaqaa complex. That report helps put Zarqawi into context. The material missing from Al-Qaqaa is only some of the dangerous material stolen and loose in Iraq. Some of it might be in Zarqawi's hands. But Zarqawi is only one leader of one group opposing the U.S. occupation. The White House has made him the latest stand-in for Osama bin Laden. The administration is trying to kill him, before the election if possible. Killing any terrorist helps. Just as resistance continued after Saddam Hussein was captured, however, it would be naive to think that killing Zarqawi would bring order to Iraq.
President Bush didn't recruit enough allies and send enough troops to guard all major weapons caches. The administration was so oblivious to the possibility of post-war resistance that it didn't recognize the developing crisis. With the results all too clear, spin is all that's left, and the Bush campaign has been doing that furiously.
The president's aides said the weapons were gone before U.S. troops could have protected them. That claim was based on a vague NBC report that has been discredited. Then they dismissed the missing explosives as "an 18-month-old story." That's not true, either. The interim Iraqi government just this month informed international inspectors — whom the Bush administration has kept out of Iraq — about the loss. Finally, the Bush administration says the invasion has destroyed much more than it has lost. But it was looting after the invasion that put the explosives in the hands of terrorists who can attack Americans and, perhaps, spread violence throughout the Middle East and elsewhere.
Iyad Allawi, Iraq's interim prime minister hand-picked by the Bush administration, on Tuesday accused the U.S.-led coalition of "great negligence" in failing to protect nearly 50 Iraqi recruits ambushed and killed last weekend in an attack, blamed on Zarqawi, that experts say relied on inside information. How can Iraq recruit troops to replace U.S. forces under such conditions? How can the U.S. turn Iraq over to such severely compromised Iraqi security forces? President Bush draws a blank.
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