NEWSWEEK Cover Story
_"Just do what you think is right," he said, as if reciting a mantra. "Stand your ground in the face of public criticism. The people will judge you correctly."
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What Will Iraq Cost Bush?
By Howard Fineman, Newsweek
Hilary Cleveland of New London, N.H., goes way back with the Bush family. Her late husband, James Colgate (Jimmy) Cleveland, was a Republican in Congress, where his paddle-ball partner in the House gym was George H.W. Bush. Hilary served on the Andover board with Barbara Bush and was finance chair of Bush's primary campaign in New Hampshire in 1980. She organized locally for George W. in 2000. But the other day, upset over the war in Iraq, she left the Republican Party, changing her registration to "undeclared" so she could vote for Dr. Howard Dean in the Democratic primary in January. "You don't go to war without valid reason," she said, "or international support." Bush's call for $87 billion in new spending on Iraq offended her Yankee sense of thrift: "I believe in fiscal integrity and balanced budgets, and spending so much doesn't seem sound."
IF PRESIDENCIES are destined to crumble, the cracks tend to appear first in the Granite State, where independents flock to one party's primary or another to presage the attitude--and anger--that centrist "swing voters" will express nationwide months later. Bush remains personally well liked in New Hampshire--and nationally. According to the newest NEWSWEEK Poll, his job-approval rating is holding at 51 percent. But the human and financial costs of the war--symbolized by death-a-day news reports and the $87 billion funding request--have made Dean a power in the state, and are beginning to worry administration insiders. "If we don't get Iraq right in time," fretted one National Security Council official, "we could lose the election."
In New Hampshire, George Bush can survive the loss of Mrs. Cleveland. But he probably can't afford to lose Sen. John McCain, the avatar of independents who defeated Bush in the 2000 Republican primary there. Bush's campaign operatives, knowing he beat Al Gore by a mere 7,000 votes in New Hampshire, are expecting to send McCain to campaign. Though there is no love lost between Bush and McCain--the residue of the brutal nomination race--the senator has been a dutiful soldier.
Until now. In a NEWSWEEK interview, McCain for the first time compared the situation in Iraq to Vietnam, where he survived six years of wartime imprisonment, and began openly distancing himself from Bush's war strategy. McCain, aides say, was rankled by what he saw as a useless, Panglossian classified briefing, especially after reading Donald Rumsfeld's now infamous internal memo. In it, the secretary of Defense said that Iraq would be a "long slog," and admitted the government had no "metric" for knowing if it was making net progress in ridding the world of terrorists.
"This is the first time that I have seen a parallel to Vietnam," McCain declared, "in terms of information that the administration is putting out versus the actual situation on the ground. I'm not saying the situation in Iraq now is as bad as Vietnam. But we have a problem in the Sunni Triangle and we should face up to it and tell the American people about it." Also reminiscent of Vietnam, McCain said, was the administration's reluctance to deploy forces with the urgency required for the quickest victory. "I think we can be OK, but time is not on our side... If we don't succeed more rapidly, the challenges grow greater."
For Bush, the political challenges are growing just as rapidly. Having made one of the most fateful decisions in the modern presidency--to try to remake the Middle East, starting with Iraq--he has no choice but to press ahead with his request for the $87 billion, even if it is unpopular. Democrats, meanwhile, see a chance to link the lethargy of the economy and an increasingly controversial war--and use the two together to unseat Bush. "The president has handed Democrats a huge issue called '87 billion'," said polltaker John Zogby, whose latest poll shows Dean surging in New Hampshire. "That much money crystallizes everyone's concerns about the war."
To distance themselves from it, Democrats--and some Republicans--are fighting to turn $10 billion of grants into loans. Republican senators still fume about a confrontational session they had with the president about the matter before he left on a trip to Asia. Bush all but demanded that they agree with him. "I'm not here to debate with you," he declared. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina grew upset. "That didn't set well with me," he recalled. "I told him I wasn't there to debate him, either." American voters, he told the president, see Iraq as an oil-rich nation that will use U.S. taxpayers' cash to repay outstanding Iraqi loans owed the French, Germans and Russians. "I told the president that his domestic political support could be in jeopardy if taxpayers decide they're being treated unfairly," Graham said.
As for the president, he remains firm. Hill insiders say he'll get the money without conditions. And if his aides fret, he doesn't seem to. Aboard Air Force One last week, he spoke of his admiration for leaders like the prime minister of Australia (a "man of steel," Bush said) who pursue unpopular policies. "Just do what you think is right," he said, as if reciting a mantra. "Stand your ground in the face of public criticism. The people will judge you correctly." In the meantime they're watching carefully--among other places, up in New Hampshire.
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