The improvised occupation
As a result of the U.S. shift in its Iraq policy this week, the news media have produced more than their usual share of analysis-heavy pieces on How We Got Here, etc. Newsweek waits until the end of its overview to uncork this choice anecdote:
At a recent press conference, the Iraqi administrator was asked by a questioner, “Admit it: you weren’t ready for the complexities and you didn’t understand the problems of Iraq.” To which Bremer replied, “It’s going to be a very long time before I admit either of these things.”
That quote just about sums up the transparently puffed-up hubris in the face of ineptitude we've been watching for the past several months. Wherever there's a failed neoconservative policy, spin from a neocon that this is all going according to the master plan is sure to follow. Even in the face of the latest military setbacks and policy U-turns, you have Paul Wolfowitz, as an anonymous administration official, feeding this optimistic flimflam to the New York Times:
"It's a gamble, a huge gamble," one of the most senior architects of Mr. Bush's campaign to oust Saddam Hussein conceded this week, after two days of meetings with L. Paul Bremer III, the head of the American-led occupation authority. "But it's easy to overestimate the degree of control we have over events now," the official said, "and to underestimate how much we will retain."
. . . Mr. Bush's aides insist that even after sovereignty passes to the provisional government, American influence will be strong. The United States military will have the heavy firepower. The $20 billion for reconstruction that Congress has approved will still be under American control, its flow directed to influencing events according to Washington's wishes. The administration will emphasize that American investors will demand independent courts, a secular government and political stability before risking billions reconstructing the Iraqi economy.
"We'll have more levers than you think, and maybe more than the Iraqis think," one senior White House official said this week.
Actually, I'm inclined to believe that the folks who have consistently overestimated the brilliance of their schemes in the past are probably continuing to overestimate their ability to shape events in the future. But I suppose there's a first time for everything.
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