Return of former policy hawks that were kept in check by Bush I: Part III
The elder Bush came by his convictions through his diverse experiences as a congressman, a liaison to China, a United Nations ambassador and director of the Central Intelligence Agency. At the CIA he first became fully and formally acquainted with those who prefer the stark, go-it-alone-if-necessary view of things his son has adopted -- and he rejected it. In early 1976, acting on a recommendation by President Ford's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board -- which was worried that U.S. intelligence was too soft on the Soviet threat -- Bush set up a group of 10 experts, called "Team B," to be granted access to classified documents in order to offer a fresh view.
Headed by Pipes, Team B's advisory panel included Wolfowitz, then a wunderkind with the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, now one of the architects of the Iraq campaign. Team B's conclusion was a bombshell: U.S. intelligence estimates, they wrote, "substantially misperceived the motivations behind Soviet strategic programs, and thereby tended consistently to underestimate their intensity, scope and implicit threat." This more suspicious view of the USSR came to be a hallmark of what was soon called neo-conservatism, as did a strong tilt toward Israel. And with the rise of Wolfowitz and others who share his worldview -- such as White House advisor Richard Perle, the assistant secretary of defense for international security policy in the Reagan administration -- Team B members soon began growing in influence.
Back then, critics of Team B blasted the approach as exaggerating the Russian menace, "to prove that the Russians are 20 feet tall and their interest is all wrong," as Herbert "Pete" Scoville, the former CIA deputy director for science and technology, told the Washington Post in 1977 -- much the way President Bush's critics today say he exaggerates the threat that Saddam and Iraq pose to the United States. But Pipes praises Team B's approach to the Cold War. "It takes a more realistic view of what the intentions of the other side are," he says. The elder Bush, as CIA director and afterwards, "was not happy with Team B, of course," Pipes adds.
The Team B doctrine was crafted in more careful detail in 1992 in a controversial draft of the Defense Department's "Defense Planning Guidance," by Wolfowitz and his deputy, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, currently the chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, who was then Wolfowitz and Libby's boss as defense secretary. The draft, leaked to the media, noted "the sense that the world order is ultimately backed by the U.S." and stated, "The United States should be postured to act independently when collective action cannot be orchestrated." Rejecting the old theory of containment, the draft said that "we should expect future coalitions to be ad hoc assemblies, often not lasting beyond the crisis being confronted." If other nations didn't step up, "the United States should be postured to act independently."
The report was to be officially issued by Cheney in early March 1992. But Team A prevented that; a couple days after this report was leaked the White House of Bush 41 began a campaign to disavow it. The then-president's national security advisor, Brent Scowcroft, Secretary of State James A. Baker III, and Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger all let it be known that they disagreed with it. The New York Times quoted an administration official "familiar with the reaction of senior officials at the White House and State Department," who called it a "dumb report" that "in no way or shape represents U.S. policy." It was substantially rewritten before it was issued in May 1992. Almost 11 years later, it can be fairly argued that Team B is now running the show.
The younger Bush sent some signals during his campaign that he would be more like Reagan than his father. His first foreign policy address, after all, was delivered at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, Calif., in November 1999.
Clearly the candidate's initial influences were largely his father and Condoleezza Rice, a former deputy to Scowcroft, the elder Bush's national security advisor; Rice assumed that very role for George W. Bush. But during the campaign, Bush's foreign policy advisory team began expanding. Soon to join the circle were Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle; Reagan administration Secretary of State George Shultz; Reagan administration assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs Richard Armitage, currently the deputy secretary of state; Bush 41's National Security Council advisor, Robert Blackwill, the current ambassador to India; Bush 41's assistant secretary of defense Steven Hadley, currently Rice's deputy; Bush 41's undersecretary of state for economic and agricultural affairs, Robert Zoellick, the current U.S. trade representative; and Dov Zakheim, who served as an undersecretary of defense for both Bushes.
One of the few Team A members to be given a position of prominence in the new administration, Gen. Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the elder Bush, became the son's secretary of state. Powell, who was heralded by the current President Bush at his swearing-in ceremony on Jan. 26, 2001, for being "a leader who understands that America must work closely with our friends in times of calm, if we want to be able to call upon them in times of crisis," had butted heads with Team B throughout his career. Powell noted in his 1995 autobiography, "My American Journey," that during the Gulf War Cheney once ordered him to explore the possibility of using nuclear weapons against Iraq.
"We're not going to let that genie loose," Powell told Cheney, who nonetheless pressed him to study the issue.
In George W. Bush's first year in office, there was an occasional tug-of-war between the Team A and Team B factions in the administration. And on occasion, when Bush was tilting too strongly toward the tough Team B approach, his father would occasionally pop his head in to give him a tug toward the Team A view.
This moderating influence was evident in March 2001. President Bush voiced an initial Team B aggressiveness toward North Korea, saying (correctly, as it turned out) that the administration was "not certain as to whether or not they're keeping all terms of all agreements." The comment, however, contradicted Team A-ish comments made by Secretary Powell, who had said the administration would continue talks with North Korea's Communist dictator Kim Jong Il, pledging to "pick up where President Clinton and his administration left off."
That June, the elder Bush sent his son a memo by Donald Gregg, former ambassador to South Korea, which argued for reengagement. The president forwarded the memo to Rice, who briefed her boss on its contents. Having argued against meetings with North Korea, Rice subsequently changed her mind. In June 2001, President Bush announced that he would resume talks with North Korea. |
