"….America's first pre-emptive war was
launched basically because Iraq had...a vial of Botox?"
Maureen Dowd: Two control freaks in a tug of war
By Maureen Dowd (NYT)
Friday, October 10, 2003
iht.com
WASHINGTON: It's easy to see why the Bush crowd is getting so tetchy. The itch to
ditch officials who fritter away the public trust is growing, as Arnold and his broom bear
down on Sacramento. And we know now that America's first pre-emptive war was
launched basically because Iraq had...a vial of Botox?
Just about the scariest thing the weapons hunter David Kay could come up with was a
vial of live botulinum, hidden in the home of an Iraqi biological weapons scientist.
This has very dire implications for Beverly Hills and the East Side of Manhattan, areas
awash in vials of Botox, the botulinum toxin that can either be turned into a deadly
biological weapon or a pricey wrinkle smoother.
And it may have dire implications for the Pentagon and White House if Americans
come to believe that their trust was betrayed when the president and his team spread
the impressions that Saddam was about to blow up America and that he was behind
Sept. 11.
It doesn't help to have a former-NATO-commander-turned-presidential-contender running
around telling the country that the Bush dream team is a bunch of dunces. Or a
former-diplomat-turned-angry-husband-of-an-outed-spy running around telling the
country that the Bush dream team is a bunch of backstabbing lawbreakers who are
dead wrong on Iraq.
The administration that never let you see it sweat is sweating, as two of its control
freaks openly tug over control. The president's foreign policy nanny and his grumpy
grampy over at the Pentagon are suddenly mud wrestling.
Women who are discouraged at the ascension of Conan the Barbarian in Cal-ee-fornia
can take heart. In this delicious gender-bender, Condoleezza Rice, the national security
adviser, triumphs as the macho infighter, driving Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
into a meltdown.
The trigger was Monday's coverage of the Iraq Stabilization Group (a.k.a. Fat Chance
Group); the group is a desperate bid to get a grip on Baghdad before the campaign
starts by transferring power for postwar Iraq from the Pentagon to the national security
adviser's office inside the White House.
Condi used a trick she learned from Rummy: pre-emption. She outflanked the famous
Washington infighter by talking about the new alignment to The New York Times before
he had a chance to object.
It was the first time the chesty defense czar - who had tried to freeze out the softies at
State, which the Pentagon sneeringly refers to as "the Department of Nice" - had been
downgraded by the president and outmaneuvered by a colleague.
"And because he is a cantankerous egomaniac," one longtime Rummy watcher said,
"he compounded his own problems by acknowledging it in public, further undermining
his own stature." President George W. Bush clearly realizes that Rumsfeld and Paul
Wolfowitz have gotten him into a fine mess. He wants his trusted Mother Hen, as he
calls Condi, the woman who probably spends as much time with him as Laura -
weekends at Camp David, vacations at the ranch, workouts at the gym - to make it all
better. This will be the first time Rice, a Soviet expert who has functioned mostly so far
as First Chum, will have her reputation on the line.
Some Republicans worry that it's risky to move accountability for postwar Iraq closer to
the Oval Office because then there's no one else to blame.
In a meeting with foreign reporters on Tuesday in Colorado Springs, Rummy made no
effort to mask his displeasure, saying he had not been consulted - even though Condi
said he had - and cattily referring to the "little committees" of the NSC. When a
German broadcast reporter pressed the defense secretary, he hissed: "I said I don't
know. Isn't that clear? You don't understand English?"
One of Rumsfeld's Rules is: "Avoid public spats. When a department argues with other
government agencies in the press, it reduces the president's options." Hmm.
Maybe Rummy hasn't brushed up lately on the Washington rulebook he wrote in the
1970's - after his stints as President Gerald Ford's chief of staff and secretary of
defense. Otherwise, he might have recalled this Rumsfeld rule before he bullied the
world and ripped up Iraq: "It is easier to get into something than to get out of it."
E-mail: liberties@nytimes.com |
