Iraq - The Big Issue in this Election
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by James O. Goldsborough
Published on Monday, July 19, 2004 by the San Diego Union-Tribune
Iraq will be the dominant theme of this presidential election, just as Vietnam was in 1968. The candidates won't have to emphasize it, it will hang over them like a thundercloud.
Lyndon Johnson knew his chances for re-election were tied to Vietnam and believed victory would be at hand long before the 1968 election.
Johnson lost his gamble and announced he would not run again. Richard Nixon, elected in his place, would become the second president defeated by Vietnam. Watergate and Nixon's resignation grew directly out of his paranoia over the Vietnam War protest movement.
Like Johnson, George W. Bush tied his fate to his war. Based on what his civilian advisers told him, he believed it would be over quickly. What he did not count on, and what his advisers had not planned for, was a long, bloody and costly occupation running into the 2004 election.
He also did not anticipate that the Iraq war would do little to defeat terrorism, and that public perception as the election approached would be that war in Iraq had made the world a more dangerous, not a safer place.
John Kerry's position on Iraq has been ambiguous. Because he voted in the Senate to support war based on Bush administration statements about Iraq's illegal weapons and ties to al-Qaeda and Sept. 11, Kerry has been circumspect in opposing it.
As evidence has surfaced showing that Iraq had no illegal weapons and was not supporting terrorism against America, Kerry has gotten more vocal in opposing the conduct of the war. But his position seems to be that Iraq is a heavy enough millstone around Bush's neck, and he does not need to pull on it.
It is a heavy millstone, and not one likely to be lifted by November. I think a majority of Americans concluded even before this month's Senate report on intelligence failures that Iraq was a mistake, and that Bush, like Johnson, does not deserve re-election.
The historical question is how could these people have made such a big mistake? Why were they so determined to use dubious intelligence as a pretext to invade and occupy Iraq, not only in light of our failure in Vietnam, but of the historical failure of foreign occupation across the Middle East?
What made Bush willing to take a gamble against such long odds? Johnson felt trapped by Vietnam, "crucified if I do and crucified if I don't," as he put it. He clung to the myth of a Communist world conspiracy long after evidence was clear that Moscow had split from Beijing and Beijing from Hanoi, and that Vietnam was a war of nationalism, not communism.
Bush was not trapped by Iraq. He cleverly used the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks as one of the pretexts for war against a regime the CIA told him was not involved in them. It was a war of choice, not necessity, and this election will be about how he could make such a big mistake.
History will answer that this way:
The Bush administration has been guided neither by history, facts nor analysis, all of which would have told it – as they told his father's administration – that an occupation of Iraq would not work and was not worth the price we would have to pay.
What did the Bush administration substitute in place of history, analysis and facts? The answer is two words: ideology and loyalty.
They believed what they wanted to believe, and when facts and analysis didn't provide a basis for their beliefs, they changed the facts and the analysts. If new facts and analysis still were wanting, they manipulated them.
Some examples:
When, prior to war, the State Department produced a long report on the difficulties of postwar occupation, the Pentagon ignored it.
When the CIA failed to produce the desired intelligence on Iraq's ties to al-Qaeda and Sept. 11, the Pentagon set up its own intelligence shop to produce what it wanted.
When International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors failed to find Iraq's illegal weapons, they challenged the inspectors themselves.
When retired ambassador Joseph Wilson reported that Iraq had not attempted to purchase uranium from Africa, they ignored the report and attacked the ambassador.
When State Department analysts advised Colin Powell of dubious statements in his planned speech to the U.N. Security Council Feb. 5, 2003, many of the dubious statements were made anyway.
When the top White House anti-terrorism official, Richard Clarke, denied any association between Iraq and Sept. 11, they made the association anyway.
In January, former CIA analyst and NSC staffer Kenneth Pollack – who had supported the Iraq war on the basis Bush's claims about Iraq wrote:
"The administration gave greatest credence to accounts presenting the most lurid picture of Iraqi activities. In many cases, analysts were distrustful of those sources, or knew unequivocally that they were wrong. But when they said so, they were not heeded."
Without Vietnam, both Johnson and Nixon would be regarded as great presidents. With Vietnam, they are toward the bottom of the list.
Without Iraq, Bush had a chance to be a uniter, the compassionate conservative, he said he was. With Iraq, he is sinking fast.
© Copyright 2004 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
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