by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright January 26, 2007
All Rights Reserved.

aced with growing opposition to his new Iraq plan, President George W. Bush showed signs of nerves, declaring, “I'm the decision-maker,” challenging Congress to come up with a better plan to his call for 21,500 extra troops. Bush insisted again in his Jan. 23 State of the Union message that failure was not an option. “I've picked a plan that I think is most likely to succeed,” said Bush, without explaining what he meant by “succeed.” U.S. casualties continue to mount, with 3,067 troops killed in action, hundreds more than died in Sept. 11. While Bush tries to sell his new plan, Vice President Dick Cheney's former Chief of Staff I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby faces trial for perjury and obstruction of justice in Washington's U.S. District Court over the outing of former covert CIA operative Valerie Plame. Libby's trial exposes White House credibility in the run-up to war.

      Libby's ex-boss finds himself at the center of Libby's trial, hearing testimony from his former top press aid Catherine J. Martin that Cheney ordered Libby to out Valerie Plame in retaliation for her husband's [former Iraq Amb. Joseph C. Wilson IV] critical remarks in the New York Times July 6, 2003, disputing Bush's claim in the 2003 State of the Union speech that Saddam tried to buy enriched uranium from Niger. Cheney dismissed as “hogwash,” in a Jan. 22 interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, that the White House had lost credibility. While Libby's trial is about whether he lied to a grand jury and FBI agents, it questions Bush's excuse for war, namely, Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. If the White House were on solid ground, why would they orchestrate a attack on Wilson for expressing his opinion that Saddam never tried to buy “yellowcake” from Africa?

      Bush and Cheney have credibility problems going forward with Iraq. If it weren't for past falsehoods and deception, Congress would be more than receptive to White House proposals. Libby's trial raises disturbing questions about White House claims before going to war about Saddam's alleged stockpile of weapons of mass destruction. Bush's false claim in the '03 State of the Union highlighted Saddam as a real nuclear threat. “This is not the fight we entered in Iraq,” Bush admitted in the State of the Union. “But it is the fight we are in. Every one of us wishes this war were over and won,” selling Congress on adding 21,500 extra troops. Bush doesn't want to visit the original justification for war. In attacking war critic Joseph C. Wilson IV, Libby's trial underscores how desperate the White House was to condemn its critics and preserve its rationale for war.

      Bush's State of the Union tried to place Iraq back in the context of Sept. 11, the best excuse for starting a preemptive war. If explained in the context Sept. 11, Bush's miscalculations on Iraq make sense. During the run up to war March 20, 2003, the White House and its friendly media allies sold the nation on Saddam's WMD and threat to U.S. national security. Once nothing was found, the justifications changed, leading to Bush's current dilemma: That the war's costs far exceed its benefits. “There's problems, ongoing problems, but we have in fact accomplished our objectives of getting rid of the old regime,” said Cheney, admitting that getting rid of Saddam was the administration's chief goal. No matter what the costs to U.S. lives, the treasury and White House credibility, Cheney considers Iraq a success because Saddam is out of the picture. Congress and the public think otherwise.

      Like the situation in Afghanistan, stabilizing Baghdad won't stop the bloody guerrilla war waged in other parts of the country. Bush's new strategy essentially expands the fortified “Green Zone” to a larger perimeter. Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai controls parts of Kabul, the capital, but has virtually no control of the rest of the country. Under secret deals with opium growers and warlords, Karzai refused to defoliate plants and watched the biggest poppy crop in the nation's history. While there's nothing wrong with extending the “Green Zone” in Baghdad, there's something very wrong with sacrificing more U.S. forces. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki also has made secret deals with Moqtada al-Sadr, now getting the radical cleric to express support for Bush's new plan. Al-Sadr made the same promises in 2004 when backed by the U.S. Army into a corner in Fallouja.

      Bush doesn't really want feedback from the public or Congress, who's expressed unambiguous opposition to his troop build up. More U.S. forces may expand the fortified “Green Zone,” but won't stop the bloody guerrilla war supported by Iran, Syria, Russia and a host of other Islamic countries, including Saudi Arabia. “My instruction to him was ‘get over to the zone as quickly as possible, and implement a plan' that will achieve our goals,” Bush told Iraq's new commander Army Lt. Gen. David Petraeus. “You're going into an important battle in the war on terror,” sticking to his old talking points that Iraq is the central front in the war on terror. If Bush listened to Congress, the American public and his retiring generals, he'd know Iraq has become a costly detour, needing an urgent exit strategy. More time, more money, more troops and more fantasy won't change the outcome.

About the Author

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.

©1999-2005 Discobolos Consulting Services, Inc.
(310) 204-8300
All Rights Reserved.