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Fri 19 Mar, 2004 10:15 am
March 19, 2004
New York Times OP-ED COLUMNIST
Taken for a Ride
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." So George Bush declared on Sept. 20, 2001. But what was he saying? Surely he didn't mean that everyone was obliged to support all of his policies, that if you opposed him on anything you were aiding terrorists.
Now we know that he meant just that.
A year ago, President Bush, who had a global mandate to pursue the terrorists responsible for 9/11, went after someone else instead. Most Americans, I suspect, still don't realize how badly this apparent exploitation of the world's good will ?- and the subsequent failure to find weapons of mass destruction ?- damaged our credibility. They imagine that only the dastardly French, and now maybe the cowardly Spaniards, doubt our word. But yesterday, according to Agence France-Presse, the president of Poland ?- which has roughly 2,500 soldiers in Iraq ?- had this to say: "That they deceived us about the weapons of mass destruction, that's true. We were taken for a ride."
This is the context for last weekend's election upset in Spain, where the Aznar government had taken the country into Iraq against the wishes of 90 percent of the public. Spanish voters weren't intimidated by the terrorist bombings ?- they turned on a ruling party they didn't trust. When the government rushed to blame the wrong people for the attack, tried to suppress growing evidence to the contrary and used its control over state television and radio both to push its false accusation and to play down antigovernment protests, it reminded people of the broader lies about the war.
By voting for a new government, in other words, the Spaniards were enforcing the accountability that is the essence of democracy. But in the world according to Mr. Bush's supporters, anyone who demands accountability is on the side of the evildoers. According to Dennis Hastert, the speaker of the House, the Spanish people "had a huge terrorist attack within their country and they chose to change their government and to, in a sense, appease terrorists."
So there you have it. A country's ruling party leads the nation into a war fought on false pretenses, fails to protect the nation from terrorists and engages in a cover-up when a terrorist attack does occur. But its electoral defeat isn't democracy at work; it's a victory for the terrorists.
Notice, by the way, that Spain's prime minister-elect insists that he intends to fight terrorism. He has even said that his country's forces could remain in Iraq if they were placed under U.N. control. So if the Bush administration were really concerned about maintaining a united front against terrorism, all it would have to do is drop its my-way-or-the-highway approach. But it won't.
For these denunciations of Spain, while counterproductive when viewed as foreign policy, serve a crucial domestic purpose: they help re-establish the political climate the Bush administration prefers, in which anyone who opposes any administration policy can be accused of undermining the fight against terrorism.
This week the Bush campaign unveiled an ad accusing John Kerry of, among other things, opposing increases in combat pay because he voted against an $87 billion appropriation for Iraq. Those who have followed this issue were astonished at the ad's sheer up-is-down-ism.
In fact, the Bush administration has done the very thing it falsely accuses Mr. Kerry of doing: it has tried repeatedly to slash combat pay and military benefits, provoking angry articles in The Army Times with headlines like "An Act of `Betrayal.' " Oh, and Mr. Kerry wasn't trying to block funds for Iraq ?- he was trying to force the administration, which had concealed the cost of the occupation until its tax cut was passed, to roll back part of the tax cut to cover the expense.
But the bigger point is this: in the Bush vision, it was never legitimate to challenge any piece of the administration's policy on Iraq. Before the war, it was your patriotic duty to trust the president's assertions about the case for war. Once we went in and those assertions proved utterly false, it became your patriotic duty to support the troops ?- a phrase that, to the administration, always means supporting the president. At no point has it been legitimate to hold Mr. Bush accountable. And that's the way he wants it.
Bush's Distortions Misled Congress in Its War Vote
Los Angeles Times COMMENTARY
Bush's Distortions Misled Congress in Its War Vote
By Edward M. Kennedy, a Democrat, is the senior senator from Massachusetts.
March 19, 2004
A year ago, the United States went to war in Iraq because President Bush and his administration convinced Congress and the country that Saddam Hussein was an urgent threat that required immediate military action. The nation has paid a high price for that decision ever since.
The case for war was based on two key claims: that Hussein was on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons, and that he had close ties to the Al Qaeda terrorists responsible for the atrocities of Sept. 11. Both claims proved to be demonstrably false.
We can only speculate about the real reasons we went to war. What is known, however, is that, at the time the decision was being made in the summer of 2002, Osama bin Laden was still at large, the war against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan had entered a troubled phase, our economy was reeling from recession, the president's approval rating in the Gallup Poll had declined from its peak of 90% after Sept. 11 to 63% by Labor Day 2002, and control of the Senate and House was at stake in the critical congressional elections in November that year.
Karl Rove, the president's political advisor, made it clear early on that the war on terrorism could be used politically. At a Republican National Committee meeting on Jan. 19, 2002, he said, "We can go to the country on this issue, because they trust the Republican Party to do a better job of protecting and strengthening America's military might and thereby protecting America."
The decision on Iraq was made in August, but the administration announced it in September. As White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. explained on Sept. 7, "from a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August."
For maximum political impact, the administration insisted that Congress vote to authorize the war before adjourning that year for the November elections.
The president, as principal cheerleader for war, said on Sept. 25, 2002, "You can't distinguish between Al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror." On Oct. 2, he said the issue "is a threat of unique urgency." On Oct. 7, he said, "facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof ?- the smoking gun ?- that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud." On Oct. 10, the House approved the war resolution 296 to 133; the Senate approved it 77 to 23 the next day.
Republicans voted overwhelmingly to authorize the war; the Democrats were deeply divided. A mushroom cloud. A threat of unique urgency. No distinction between Hussein and Al Qaeda. These were the administration's reasons, and none of them was true. The GOP prevailed in the 2002 elections and regained control of Congress, but it was a hollow victory.
Presumably, the administration felt it could not persuade Congress to authorize the war on the basis of chemical and biological weapons alone, since Hussein's arsenal had been successfully contained for years. The case for war depended on hyping the nuclear threat and ties to Al Qaeda. In fact, the intelligence community had poured cold water on both the nuclear threat and the Al Qaeda link before the war began. CIA Director George J. Tenet stated in a speech last month that the agency told the administration before the war that "Saddam did not have a nuclear weapon, and probably would have been unable to make one until 2007 to 2009."
The ties to Al Qaeda were just as dubious. Before the war, the intelligence community found no cooperative relationship between Hussein and Al Qaeda. It had low confidence even in the prospect that, in desperation, Hussein might share chemical and biological weapons with Al Qaeda. In February 2003, FBI investigators said they had been baffled by the administration's insistence on a solid link. "We just don't think it's there," said one official.
The truth was there to see, but the administration refused to see it. America went to war in a dishonest way that alienated key allies, divided and weakened the United Nations, outraged the world community, made us more hated in the world and made the war on terrorism more difficult to win.
The decision on war or peace is the most important decision any president ever makes. The prime minister of Spain paid a high price Sunday for supporting us in the war, and for misleading the Spanish people. President Bush is likely to pay a similar high price in November.
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