The president mishandled the War on terror

By Burt Hall

From the very inception of his Administration, President Bush has mishandled the war on terrorism.  He did so first, by subordinating terrorism to his own agenda and missing three chances to prevent 9-11, second, by covering up responsibility for that tragedy and trying to block its investigation, third, by diverting our military power from a world-wide al-Qaeda threat to an unneeded war in Iraq and finally, by adopting a strategy for global terrorism that is far too limited in scope to protect us.

After addressing these points and various reasons put forward for the war in Iraq, this article will inquire into why the President's misjudgments went unchecked by Congress and the media.

THE THREE CHANCES TO PREVENT 9-11

Bush's first chance came when al-Qaeda's responsibility for the USS Cole attack was confirmed.  He did not pursue military action or resume covert actions initiated by the Clinton Admini­stration. 

Bush's second chance came in the spring of 2001, when a bipartisan commission on U.S. national security urged him to prepare for an impending catastrophe and recommended he establish a Home­land Security Department.  He rejected the new Department.

Bush's third chance came that summer when warnings of an attack reached a high intensity.  Frantic with concern, the CIA Director warned the White House of a “significant attack in the near future”.

The threat was real and based on a series of warnings the possible targets were known -- only the timing was uncertain.  Taken individually the threat information was disturbing, but taken collectively the information was overpowering. It is hard to imagine why Bush did not demonstrate greater concern and share his information with the American people.

The people of the United States needed to be at a high state of awareness and become proactive.  Presidential leadership would have stimu­lated a new level of energy, creativity, and cooperation within federal and local agen­cies that would have elicited public participa­tion. With reener­gized government surveillance and public participation, the coun­try would have been much better prepared to avert a horrible tragedy.

The tragedy might have been averted had the Bush Admini­stra­tion (1)responded to the USS Cole attack, (2) mobilized the government into a Homeland Security Department and (3) taken seriously the grave warnings received during the summer.  These things didn’t happen and we haven’t been told why.  Was the President preoc­cupied with his own agenda, or was he concerned with the impact of public fears on a sagging economy, or, as a special report con­cluded, was his national security team up to the task?

The attack "wasn't averted because 2001 saw a sys­temic collapse in the ability of Washington's national security apparatus to handle the terrorist threat."

                                            Time Magazine,

                                             "The Secret History,"

                                             Aug. 12, 2002

THE 9-11 COVER-UP

The President's attitude on cooperation with the 9-11 commission has been just the opposite of what it should be.  As Commander-in-Chief, he should have worked with the commission to get at the heart of the problem -- with the idea of preventing future attacks.  Instead, for a year, the White House resisted the commission investigation and then stonewalled it. 

As commissioners have acknowledged, they suffered from lengthy delays, maddening restrictions and disputes over access to sensitive documents and witnesses.  Some of the commission’s problems were:

•      Ashcroft  had to screen all Commission requests for information.

•       Agency people being interrogated had to have agency monitors accompanying them.

•  Testimony of presidential aides in public and under oath were resisted.

•   Access to presidential intelligence briefs was blocked for months and then only limited access granted to them.

Bottom line

President Bush presided over the greatest national security failure in our history.  We may never know for an absolute certainty whether 9-11 could have been prevented.  The critical issue is Bush's inattention to the subject, his lack of response to repeated warnings, his absence of presidential leadership when it really counted and the White House cover-up since then. 

According an independent survey, al-Qaeda's ranks have swollen to 18,000 in more than 60 countries.  The idea that we can cope with each and every country that supports or harbors terrorist is macho and impossible to achieve.  Ridding the world of terrorism is a shared responsibility demanding leadership from all heads of state.  Each country should have a mandate to rid itself of terror­ism and to ask other countries for military and other assistance, as needed.  Such a worldwide endeavor should be overseen by the UN and supported by periodic heads of state meetings on progress. 

Also, America should sponsor a UN commission to iden­tify basic changes that would reverse the root causes of organ­ized violent behavior in this world. (See separate article.)

The detour to iraq

Following 9-11, the President moved aggressively against the al-Qaeda network but, instead of finishing the job, he diverted much of our military power and intelligence to a war in Iraq.  During that war’s build-up, Bush por­trayed intelligence estimates of banned weapons as if they were solid fact, when actually they were of uncertain reliability. He did not have these estimates verified by some 250 UN inspectors then on the ground in Iraq.  The inspectors (repre­senting 60 coun­tries) were experts on each WMD category and were in a position to obtain the facts.  

The pressure from above to justify the war

As Bob Woodward pointed out in his book, “Plan of Attack”, Bush had already decided on a path to war at least a year before the invasion.  In other words, there was a likelihood of war before the intelligence community began to prepare their estimate.  This put considerable pressure on the intelli­gence community.  For example, they sought and selectively used raw intelligence data, without expos­ing it to the vigorous scru­tiny traditionally followed.  (As explained in Seymour Hersh’s article in The New Yorker, bypassing this scrutiny is known as "stovepip­ing.")  The raw data included some from defectors and exile groups who were promoting an American invasion of Iraq.

As CBS news reported, people inside the CIA were “disheartened, dispirited, and angry.”  As one senior CIA official put it, “Information not consistent with the administration agenda was discarded and information that was (consistent) was not seriously scrutinized.” 

Since the war, well over 100 articles have challenged the Administration’s credi­bility.   None of the reasons cited in the congres­sional authorization for war have proved to be true.  None of the 20-some claims in Secretary Powell's UN presentation have been borne out.  In a DVD, former experts from the CIA, Pentagon and Foreign Service tell us how we were misled into war (www.truthuncovered.com).  Finally, a report of the Army War College sums up the situa­tion this way:

•                                  Saddam was deterred and did not present a threat. 

          Taking him down was a distraction from the war on terror.

•                                The anti-terror campaign is unfocused and threatens to dissi­        pate U.S. military resources.

•                              The U.S. Army is “near the breaking point.”

various attempts to justify the war

     1

Saddam eventually would have converted facilities from civilian to weapons production and would have

reconsti­tuted his former programs.

There are five problems with this scenario.

First, the President got his support on the grounds that Iraq was concealing lethal weapons and was an immediate threat to the United States and the region.  Clearly, that support would not have been given had his argument been based on assumptions of some remote threat in the future.

Second, having scientists on Saddam’s payroll and facilities that are subject to conversion is not enough to justify war.  In fact, any war around the world could be started on this basis.

Third, Iraq was not then a terrorist state.  There is no evidence that Iraq sponsored al-Qaeda attacks.  Rumors did exist of al-Qaeda training camps in the north, however, that part of Iraq was controlled by the Kurds, not by Saddam.

FOURTH The President’s claim that Iraq might have passed illegal weapons “secretly” to al-Qaeda also had no foundation.   Dr. Kay's team in Iraq found no evidence of transfer of any illegal weapons to terror­ists. 

FIFTH Bush and his chief aides repeatedly hinted at Iraqi connections to 9-11.  Practically everyone “in the know” has long since dismissed that claim. Finally, after the war was over, the Presi­dent dismissed it too --- in a very offhand and casual manner. 

                                             2

Iraq is now the central front for the war on terrorism.

Fighting Iraq had little to do with terrorism until we invited it  with an invasion.  

                                      3

If we don’t fight the terrorists in Iraq now, we will have

to fight them one day in the streets of American cities.

This is pure conjecture. How do we know that terrorists now entering Iraq entertained any idea of coming to America?   It is far more likely that a unilateral invasion of a Muslim country provoked them.  This contention also assumes our Department of Homeland Security would allow terror­ists free rein in this country.

                                           4

              Saddam treated his people brutally.

The Administration constantly refers to incidents of brutality which took place years ago.  Some of these incidents were well known to the earlier Reagan/Bush administrations.  Nevertheless, they treated him as a valuable ally until the Gulf War and nothing was done.  The incidents are entirely unrelated to the war on global terrorism.  Had the President tried to go to war on this basis, he would have been laughed out of Congress.

                                           5

The war was justified “because we removed a regime

that did have these weapons and gave us no

reason to believe they had eliminated them.”

“Did” is the operative word.  This means that, in order to avoid a preemptive war, a country has to prove a negative.  Poor Iraqi bookkeeping (documenting weapon destruction) does not excuse the war.  Given time, UN experts on the ground could have revealed the truth.

                                        6

The world is a safer/better place without Saddam.

Actually, he had been defanged and containing him had worked.  His regime was slowly crum­bling.

                                       7

                 Congress and other countries also believed

                             Saddam had WMD’s

Congress and other countries relied to a large extent on Bush/Cheney's strong rhetoric and American intelligence.  More importantly, beliefs are not a basis for preemptive war -- only facts and they were available through UN inspections.

                                      8

        Spreading democracy throughout the Mideast.

This is the Administration’s most recent reason for the war.  As a recent Muslim Nobel prize winner commented, the way to contribute to democracy is not through a military attack or by dropping bombs -- rather, it is a historical process that cannot be imposed from the outside.  According to a Boston Globe report, the CIA, State Department and an international consulting firm all warned the Administration against trying to build democracy “on the ashes of Saddam’s regime.”

An intimidated CONGRESS gives 

A Blank check to the president

When the President decided to go to war in Iraq, Congress relied on the same intelligence that he (presumably) used and gave him a blank check.  Under our Constitution, Congress is supposed to act an equal branch and as a check and balance for the Executive.  Congress did not ask the tough questions, obtain independent information, or insist on using actual data from UN inspectors instead of mere estimates.  The type of authorization the Congress should have given the President is depicted below.  It was sent by a WWII Vet (the author) to various members of Congress before they voted.

             ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF AN IRAQI

                                 MILITARY AUTHORIZATION

Most in Congress fell into lockstep with the President without calling in outside experts to get both sides of the story.  Members relied on Administration witnesses and spokesmen --- what else could these spokesmen say but support the President?  In effect, Congress ceded its constitutional war-making power to the Presi­dent.  They abandoned the all-important system of checks and balances that our founding fathers had so carefully built into our democracy.

A Subservient MEDIA

The media is supposed to act as our watchdog.  It is about the only way for the public to find out more than the government chooses to tell us. 

The media succumbed to the President claims and sent its own people to join military units to report from there.  They did not ask the tough questions.  For example, if banned weapons of the magnitude claimed by the President really existed, where is the proof of just a few?    Or, why didn’t the Administration use UN experts on the ground to very their own intelligence estimates?

The media's tendency was to rely on high-level sources sympa­thetic to the Administration and Iraqi defectors and exile groups, rather than to do independent evaluations.  The coverage of many newspapers was highly deferential to the White House.  There were some exceptions, such as the Knight Ridder newspa­per.  But, not readily available in key cities, that paper did not receive national attention.

The New York Times periodically reported that the threat from Iraq’s weapons programs was real and ominous.  In May 2004, the Times published an apology for running numerous stories containing misinformation.  Later, the Times Ombudsman said:

·                 The Times reporting relied on exiles and anonymous administration sources.

·                 The Times was used to further a cunning campaign to promote WMD stories.

·                 When these stories broke apart the Times reader never found out or who were the mistaken sources.

The Washington Post ran a major editorial in support of the war.  Its editorial assumed facts not in evidence.  As Bob Woodward pointed out, his own newspaper downplayed contrary evidence from its reporters by putting it on back pages.  The Post still has not apologized for having misled its readers.

Both newspapers have exceptional reporters who contributed much to what we know today but little to what we should have known yesterday.   

The bottom line

As mid-term elections approached, Bush intimidated Congress into passing an open-ended authority allowing him to use force in Iraq.  He manipulated our nation into an unprovoked and costly conflict that violated international law. (Regime changes are not legal).  

The war has made us more, not less, vulnerable to terrorism. Our troops are sitting ducks for Iraqi rage and incoming terrorists.   Attacks on the U.S. military have ranged from 25 to over 100 a day.  U.S. military deaths, combat wounded, accidents, suicides, and mentally unstable evacuees exceed well over 10,000.  Some of our military people will have to live out their lives as amputees, disfigured or disabled.  Baghdad morgues have received 15-20 times more civilian deaths per month than before the war.  

By staging a unilateral, preemptive war using bad informa­tion, the Administration has opened Pandora’s Box.  America’s good name is under attack from all over the world.  It will take at least a decade to repair America’s credibility and rebuild trust in our Government.

Bush is ducking responsibility for the crisis his Administration created.  He, alone, is responsible for his words, decisions and the people he appointed.  The buck stops at his desk. 

The reader should wonder whether some of the recent terrorist attacks would have happened if the United States had conducted an all out war on al-Qaeda instead of diverting most of our resources to Iraq.

Hopefully, constituents will take a hard look at how their repre­sentatives in Congress responded to a President’s bent on war.  Public hearings are needed to inquire into the media’s independence. Among the issues are media concentration and ownership.

An independent investigation of the war is in order -- not just of intelligence, but a broad enough investigation to question the necessity for the war, its legality, and how it was justified. 

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Burt Hall was a Group Director (analyst) in the U.S. General Accounting Office devoted primarily to matters of national security.   He is the author of numerous articles, including” 9-11 and a Lack of Presidential Leadership” and a best-selling book, “How the Experts Win at Bridge."