April 13, 2004
Which item is missing from this list?
John Negroponte, about to be appointed Ambassador to Iraq, speaks Greek, French, Spanish, and Vietnamese, as well as English.
Some suggested edits to the President's speech
I didn't watch the press conference, so I don't know how the President looked or sounded, but reading the transcript I thought he handled the press's mostly-softball questions mostly pretty well. And the opening statement seemed to me rhetorically masterful.
However, that opening statement was also an insult to the intelligence of the hearer. No matter how "somber" Mr. Bush might have looked, he simply didn't level with the country about what's really happening on the ground in Iraq. I've inserted in boldface below the phrases and sentences that I think would have been necessary to make it a reasonably accurate statement of the facts, while still being within the realm of things a President is allowed to say in public.
And I've put in italics statements that should have caused the President's nose to grow, and that could have been omitted. I've added footnotes at the end, explaining why those passages seem to me to embody whoppers.
(I've tried to resist the temptation to add any of the snarky comments that came to mind: a temptation to which I hope some fellow-blogger will succumb.)
____________________
Before I take your questions, let me speak with the American people about the situation in Iraq.
This has been tough weeks in that country. Coalition forces have encountered serious violence in some areas of Iraq, a level of violence we did not expect to face a year after the fall of Baghdad. Our military commanders report that this violence is being instigated by three groups. Some remnants of Saddam Hussein's regime, along with Islamic militants, have attacked coalition forces in the city of Fallujah. Terrorists from other countries have infiltrated Iraq to incite and organize attacks.
In the south of Iraq, coalition forces face riots and attacks that are being incited by a radical cleric named al-Sadr. He has assembled some of his supporters into an illegal militia and publicly supported the terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah.
Al-Sadr's methods of violence and intimidation are widely repudiated by other Iraqi Shia, although no actual Iraqi leader of any stature has criticized him directly or called for his capture: perhaps because Iraqis still fear for their personal safety. He's been indicted by Iraqi authorities for the murder of a prominent Shia cleric.
Although these instigations of violence come from different factions, they share common goals. They want to run us out of Iraq and destroy the democratic hopes of the Iraqi people.
The violence we have seen is a power grab by these extreme and ruthless elements. It's not a civil war. It's not a popular uprising. Most of Iraq is relatively stable, though the extent of instability is greater than we have seen in the past year. Most Iraqis by far reject violence and oppose dictatorship in principle, though so far that rejection has not been translated into a willingness to fight back against those who prefer a return to the old tyranny or the development of a theocratic tyranny. Organizing Iraqis to fight for their rights is one of the fundamental challenges before the occupation in its final ten weeks and, more importantly, before the new sovereign Iraqi government.
In forums where Iraqis have met to discuss their political future, and in all the proceedings of the Iraqi Governing Council, Iraqis have expressed clear commitments, although the IGC has also criticized our methods in Falloujah and at least four IGC members have resigned. We regret as much as they do the unavoidable civilian casualties of street-to-street urban warfare. They want strong protections for individual rights. They want their independence. And they want their freedom.
America's commitment to freedom in Iraq is consistent with our ideals and required by our interests. Iraq will either be a peaceful, democratic country or it will again be a source of violence, a haven for terror and a threat to America and to the world.
By helping secure a free Iraq, Americans serving in that country are protecting their fellow citizens. Our nation is grateful to them all and to their families that face hardship and long separation.
This weekend, at a Fort Hood hospital, I presented a Purple Heart to some of our wounded, had the honor of thanking them on behalf of all Americans.
Other men and women have paid an even greater cost. Our nation honors the memory of those who have been killed, and we pray that their families will find God's comfort in the midst of their grief.
As I have said to those who have lost loved ones, we will finish the work of the fallen.
America's armed forces are performing brilliantly, with all the skill and honor we expect of them. We're constantly reviewing their needs. Troop strength now and in the future is determined by the situation on the ground. If additional forces are needed, as Gen. Abizaid yesterday said they were, I will send them. If additional resources are needed, we will provide them.
The people of our country are united behind our men and women in uniform, and this government will do all that is necessary to assure the success of their historic mission.
One central commitment of that mission is the transfer of the sovereignty back to the Iraqi people. We have set a deadline of June 30th. It is important that we meet that deadline.
As a proud, independent people, Iraqis do not support an indefinite occupation, and neither does America. We're not an imperial power, as nations such as Japan and Germany can attest. We're a liberating power, as nations in Europe and Asia can attest as well.
America's objective in Iraq is limited, and it is firm. We seek an independent, free and secure Iraq.
Were the coalition to step back from the June 30th pledge, many Iraqis would question our intentions and feel their hopes betrayed. And those in Iraq who trade in hatred and conspiracy theories would find a larger audience and gain a stronger hand.
We will not step back from our pledge. On June 30th, Iraqi sovereignty will be placed in Iraqi hands. As the details of that transfer, and of the post-transfer interim government of Iraq and Iraq's long-term constitution, get worked out over the next several weeks, we can expect political fireworks for sure and, possibly, additional violence.
Sovereignty involves more than a date and a ceremony. It requires Iraqis to assume responsibility for their own future.
Iraqi authorities are now confronting the security challenge of the last several weeks.
In Fallujah, coalition forces have suspended offensive operations, allowing members of the Iraqi Governing Council and local leaders to work on the restoration of central authority in that city. These leaders are communicating with the insurgents to ensure an orderly turnover of that city to Iraqi forces, so that the resumption of military action does not become necessary.
They are also insisting that those who killed and mutilated four American contract workers be handed over for trial and punishment. *
In addition, members of the Governing Council are seeking to resolve the situation in the south. Al-Sadr must answer the charges against him and disband his illegal militia.
Our coalition is standing with responsible Iraqi leaders as they establish growing authority in their country. The transition to sovereignty requires that we demonstrate confidence in Iraqis. And we have that confidence. Many Iraqi leaders are showing great personal courage, and their example will bring out the same quality in others.
The transition to sovereignty also requires an atmosphere of security, and our coalition is working to provide that security.
We will continue taking the greatest care to prevent harm to innocent civilians, yet we will not permit the spread of chaos and violence. I have directed our military commanders to make every preparation to use decisive force if necessary to maintain order and to protect our troops.
The nation of Iraq is moving toward self-rule, and Iraqis and Americans will see evidence in the months to come. On June 30th, when the flag of a free Iraq is raised, Iraqi officials will assume responsibility for the ministries of government. On that day, the transitional administrative law, including a bill of rights that is unprecedented in the Arab world, will take full effect.
The United States and all the nations of our coalition will establish normal diplomatic relations with the Iraqi government. An American embassy will open, and an American ambassador will be posted.
According to the schedule already approved by the Governing Council, Iraq will hold elections for a national assembly no later than next January. That assembly will draft a new permanent constitution, which will be presented to the Iraqi people in a national referendum held in October of next year.
Iraqis will then elect a permanent government by December 15, 2005 -- an event that will, we hope, mark the completion of Iraq's transition from dictatorship to freedom. Some influential Iraqis, not affilitated with those now in arms against us, want elections to come sooner. We, and the Iraqi Governing Council, are working to reconcile their understandable impatience with the realities of a nation still rebuilding from decades of tyranny.
Other nations and international institutions are stepping up to their responsibilities in building a free and secure Iraq. We're working closely with the United Nations envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, and with Iraqis to determine the exact form of the government that will receive sovereignty on June 30th.
The United Nations Election Assistance Team, headed by Karina Perelli, is in Iraq developing plans for next January's election. NATO is providing support for the Polish-led, multinational division in Iraq. And 17 of NATO's 26 members are contributing forces to maintain security.
Secretary of State Powell and Secretary of State Rumsfeld and a number of NATO defense and foreign ministers are exploring a more formal role for NATO, such as turning the Polish-led division into a NATO operation and giving NATO specific responsibilities for border control.
Iraqis' neighbors also have responsibilities to make their region more stable. So I'm sending Deputy Secretary of State Armitage to the Middle East to discuss with these nations our common interest in a free and independent Iraq, and how they can help achieve this goal.
As we've made clear all along, our commitment to the success and security of Iraq will not end on June 30th. On July 1st and beyond, our reconstruction assistance will continue and our military commitment will continue.
Having helped Iraqis establish a new government, coalition military forces will help Iraqis to protect their government from external aggression and internal subversion.
The success of free government in Iraq is vital for many reasons:
A free Iraq is vital because 25 million Iraqis have as much right to live in freedom as we do.
A free Iraq will stand as an example to reformers across the Middle East.
A free Iraq will show that America is on the side of Muslims who wish to live in peace, as we've already shown in Kuwait and Kosovo, Bosnia and Afghanistan.
A free Iraq will confirm to a watching world that America's word, once given, can be relied upon, even in the toughest times.
Above all, the defeat of violence and terror in Iraq is vital to the defeat of violence and terror elsewhere and vital, therefore, to the safety of the American people.
Now is the time, and Iraq is the place, in which the enemies of the civilized world are testing the will of the civilized world. We must not waver.
The violence we are seeing in Iraq is familiar. The terrorists who take hostages or plants a roadside bomb near Baghdad is serving the same ideology of murder that kills innocent people on trains in Madrid, and murders children on buses in Jerusalem, and blows up a nightclub in Bali and cuts the throat of a young reporter for being a Jew.**
We've seen the same ideology of murder in the killing of 241 Marines in Beirut, the first attack on the World Trade Center, in the destruction of two embassies in Africa, in the attack on the USS Cole, and in the merciless horror inflicted upon thousands of innocent men and women and children on September the 11th, 2001.
None of these acts is the work of a religion. All are the work of a fanatical political ideology. The servants of this ideology seek tyranny in the Middle East and beyond. They seek to oppress and persecute women.
They seek the death of Jews and Christians and every Muslim who desires peace over theocratic terror. They seek to intimidate America into panic and retreat, and to set free nations against each other. And they seek weapons of mass destruction, to blackmail and murder on a massive scale.
Over the last several decades, we've seen that any concession or retreat on our part will only embolden this enemy and invite more bloodshed. And the enemy has seen, over the last 31 months, that we will no longer live in denial or seek to appease them.
For the first time, the civilized world has provided a concerted response to the ideology of terror -- a series of powerful, effective blows.
The terrorists have lost the shelter of the Taliban and the training camps in Afghanistan. They have lost safe havens in Pakistan. They lost an ally in Baghdad. And Libya has turned its back on terror.
They've lost many leaders in an unrelenting international manhunt. And perhaps more frightening to these men and their movement, the terrorists are seeing the advance of freedom and reform in the greater Middle East.
A desperate enemy is also a dangerous enemy. And our work may become more difficult before it is finished. No one can predict all the hazards that lie ahead or the cost that they will bring.
Yet, in this conflict, there is no safe alternative to resolute action. The consequences of failure in Iraq would be unthinkable.
Every friend of America in Iraq would be betrayed to prison and murder, as a new tyranny arose. Every enemy of America in the world would celebrate, proclaiming our weakness and decadence, and using that victory to recruit a new generation of killers.
We will succeed in Iraq. We're carrying out a decision that has already been made and will not change. Iraq will be a free, independent country, and America and the Middle East will be safer because of it.
Our coalition has the means and the will to prevail. We serve the cause of liberty, and that is always and everywhere a cause worth serving.
_________________________
* The comment about turning over those who killed the four contract fighters in Fallujah is pretty silly. What earthly reason is there to think that the perpetrators stayed around to be captured and executed by us when we re-took the city, as they knew we would? If we insist on having some "terrorists" to execute, no doubt they will be provided, but it seems unlikely that they will be the actual criminals.
** Terrorism, if the word has any meaning at all, means killing non-combatants. Attacks on armed personnel and on military transportation and installations can't reasonably be called "terrorist." Sadr's support for Hamas and Hezbollah makes him a supporter of terrorists, but Sadr's insurrection doesn't make him, or his supporters, terrorists.
A thought experiment
Reader Harold S. Kramer had a dream, which he relates in the form of a small drama:
August 6th, 2001.
(Telephone Rings)
Secretary : Good Morning, Crawford Ranch. How may I direct your call?
OSAMA: Good morning. This is Osama Bin Laden. I want to speak to the President. It's urgent.
Secretary: One moment please...(pause)
THE PRESIDENT: Osi-Dosey! Long time no talk to. What's up, big fella?
OSAMA: I am determined to attack a target inside America soon.
THE PRESIDENT: Interesting. Tell me more.
OSAMA: I suppose you want to know where, how, and when?
THE PRESIDENT: Of course. Otherwise it wouldn't be a "threat warning," would it?
OSAMA: No can do, W. But I will tell you it will be very soon. My operatives are already in America.
THE PRESIDENT: No kidding?
OSAMA: Yes, and there will be hijackings.
THE PRESIDENT: Is there anything specifically you'd like to recommend that I do about it?
OSAMA: Not especially.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, if you can't be specific, then there's no need for me to tell Cheney about this conversation. Your call is of purely historical interest.
OSAMA: Have it your way, Mr. President. But it will be big. Very big.
THE PRESIDENT: No offense, Osi, but you can be sort of a bore at times, you know? I mean, I'm on vacation here.
OSAMA: Well, don't say I didn't warn you.
THE PRESIDENT: Bring it on!
Question: Is there any operationally relevant difference between bin Laden's message in Mr. Kramer's dream and the intelligence actually made available to the White House in the July 2001 CIA briefing and the August 6 PDB?
At some level, of course, all this second-guessing is grossly unfair. The Oval Office doesn't come equipped with a crystal ball, and everything looks clearer in hindsight.
And I strongly agree the country would be better occupied right now figuring out how to restore some semblance of peace to Iraq than arguing about who blew 9-11.
But the insistence of the White House that no mistakes were made seems to me simply unbearable.
Is it certain that an "all hands to battle stations" based on the August 6 PDB would have led to (1) someone figuring out that airplanes might be used as missiles; (2) someone else figuring out that, if that was a threat, the previous guidance to air crews about how to deal with hijacking attempts needed to be scrapped, and locks put on cockpit doors; and (3) sufficiently swift implementation to thwart one or more of the 9-11 attacks? No, it's not certain.
But the fourth hijacking led to a plane crash rather than the loss of a building because the people on board had gotten the news about the three previous flights. If the FAA had sent out warnings about the Tom Clancy scenario to all flight crews as late as September 10, that might have saved one, or maybe both, of the WTC buildings, and a thousand or more lives.
But the point, it seems to me, is not figuring out now whether that particular scenario would have been played out. The point is that the people responsible for the safety of this nation have been too busy playing CYA to do an honest, competent job of after-action analysis.
In one of Atul Gawande's beautiful essays on the training of surgeons, he reports that the single characteristic that most clearly distinguishes someone who is going to make it as a surgeon from someone who is going to wash out is his reaction to bad outcomes.
The trainees whose first reaction is "It wasn't my fault" are too dangerous to have in the OR. The surgeon you want is the one who says "How could I have prevented that?"
By that standard, I wouldn't let George W. Bush cut my toenails. How about you?
Update
From tonight's press conference:
QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President.
In the last campaign, you were asked a question about the biggest mistake you'd made in your life, and you used to like to joke that it was trading Sammy Sosa.
You've looked back before 9-11 for what mistakes might have been made. After 9-11, what would your biggest mistake be, would you say, and what lessons have learned from it?
BUSH: I wish you'd have given me this written question ahead of time so I could plan for it.
John, I'm sure historians will look back and say, gosh, he could've done it better this way or that way. You know, I just -- I'm sure something will pop into my head here in the midst of this press conference, with all the pressure of trying to come up with answer, but it hadn't yet.
I would've gone into Afghanistan the way we went into Afghanistan. Even knowing what I know today about the stockpiles of weapons, I still would've called upon the world to deal with Saddam Hussein.
See, I'm of the belief that we'll find out the truth on the weapons. That's why we sent up the independent commission. I look forward to hearing the truth as to exactly where they are. They could still be there. They could be hidden, like the 50 tons of mustard gas in a turkey farm.
One of the things that Charlie Duelfer talked about was that he was surprised of the level of intimidation he found amongst people who should know about weapons and their fear of talking about them because they don't want to be killed.
You know, there's this kind of -- there's a terror still in the soul of some of the people in Iraq.
They're worried about getting killed, and therefore they're not going to talk. But it'll all settle out, John. We'll find out the truth about the weapons at some point in time.
However, the fact that he had the capacity to make them bothers me today just like it would have bothered me then. He's a dangerous man. He's a man who actually not only had weapons of mass destruction -- the reason I can say that with certainty is because he used them.
And I have no doubt in my mind that he would like to have inflicted harm, or paid people to inflict harm, or trained people to inflict harm, on America, because he hated us.
I hope -- I don't want to sound like I have made no mistakes. I'm confident I have. I just haven't -- you just put me under the spot here, and maybe I'm not as quick on my feet as I should be in coming up with one.
Thank you, Mr. President, for making my point so clearly.
Mr. Bush wishes he'd had advance warning of the question so he could think up an answer: i.e., until the question was put to him on national television, it never occurred to him to retrace his steps and figure out what he'd done wrong. That's really all a voter needs to know come November.
Why 5 occupiers per 1000 population
was enough in Japan but too few in Iraq
A reader expert in these matters, responding to an earlier post in this space citing Sy Hersh's report that the Iraq occupation was grossly undermanned compared to historical examples, sent links to the two RAND documents on which Hersh relied: an executive summary and the full text of James Dobbins, John G. McGinn, Keith Crane, Seth G. Jones, Rollie Lal, Andrew Rathmell, Rachel Swanger, and Anga Timilsina, America's Role in Nation-Building: from Germany to Iraq. (2003)
My reader noted that the actual range of occupation force-to-population ratios had been wide: 100 per thousand Germany, 20 per 1000 for Bosnia and Kosovo, but only 5 per thousand for Japan. (Recall that the ratio in Iraq is about 6 per 1000.) The Japanese figure seemed, at first blush, to contradict Hersh's thesis; if 5 occupiers per thousand population was enough for Japan, how could 6 per 1000 be grossly two low for Iraq?
In response to my query on that point, my reader sent the following response, and in response to a subsequent email the reader agreed to have it published here, without attribution ["I don't particularly want to tone down the anti-Bush stuff as I would want to do for publication under my name (they do pay my salary, indirectly, and they are vindictive...)"].
I don't know that my reader is right, but I do know that he's (1) scary-smart and (2) a technocrat rather than a partisan.
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The answer to these questions amounts to an indictment of the Bush administration's astounding lack of preparation for the aftermath of a voluntary war that they initiated and conducted on their preferred timetable.
Why 5/1000 was enough for Japan has a lot to do the fact that its society and governing institutions were intact and cooperating with the occupation. In fact, Japan's government began demobilization and other post-war transition functions before the US occupying forces arrived. So we were able to rely on indigenous functioning institutions. The US Occupation relied on the existing Japanese government and saw their function as "oversight." The existing Japanese domestic bureaucracy emerged from the occupation stronger than ever. Extensive land reform helped gain the support of the countryside, and the economic boom that attended the Korean war sealed political support for the post war government.
Why this was true has a lot to do with the nature of the conflict and the country knowing it was defeated, and there may be some social and cultural factors that are specific to Japan.
Japan was fighting WWII to protect its empire - it was a classic state-level conflict rather than an ideological or religious or even primarily a racial one-so once we had defeated the Japanese military and eliminated the empire the cause of conflict between us and the population was largely gone. Although we did muck around some with internal Japanese structure, this was pretty much skin deep-for example, the big industrial alliances are somewhat tamer versions of the old Zaibatsu, we decentralized the police but it was immediately recentralized at the end of the occupation, and we didn't offend the local religion in any way.
The fact that the Japanese military was in fact wholly defeated outside of Japan, the symbolic surrender on the Missouri, and MacArthur letting the emperor stay did a lot to legitimize the occupation. We relied on existing Japanese institutions for local social control. Japan also had experience with at least the forms of democracy.
These factors contrast greatly with the situation in Iraq, where Saddam had basically denuded the country of all legitimate political and social institutions, where there was no real surrender and we disbanded whatever institutions of social control existed (Baath party and Army), where our expressed aim in the conflict was a desire on our part to provide a different internal regime, where the background of a politicized religious difference provided ready tools for mobilization against the occupation (and of course Iran is mucking around in a way that had no real analogy in 1945 Japan-though the Soviet influence on Japanese communists provided an analogy a little later).
In sum, in Japan you had a largely intact society, you had limited grounds for ideological mobilization (other than nationalism, of course), and you had the powers-that-be making an accommodation to what was perceived as a legitimate occupation.
20 per thousand is also about what the British had in Northern Ireland and in Malaya, so it's a pretty good number for dealing with an active conflict in the context of a more or less intact government. In Iraq, we are now dealing with an active insurgency in the context of a non-existent government. This would seem to require more than 20 per thousand. The question is, could we have done something that would have kept the civil administration intact or prevented an active insurgency from happening, or, preferably, both?
In Iraq, by contrast with Japan, you had a thugocracy and Army that melted into the woodwork, you had abundant grounds for ideological mobilization against an occupation that had very little legitimacy (as measured by international or regional approbation), and you had non-functioning domestic institutions that we in any case set out to disband. Plus Saddam had already let all the criminals out of jail and organized abundantly armed paramilitaries. The war was not over a year ago.
Was this chaos predictable? We knew the jails had been emptied, we knew how thoroughly Baathified the police and Army were, and we knew that we intended to de-Baathify the country, so I think it was. Once the war started, we knew from the first days that there were no organized surrenders and there were major actions by irregulars, so it was certainly predictable at that point. The administration simply had ideological blinders about how we would be welcomed as liberators.
Compared to Japan, you also have borders that need to be patrolled (both Iranian and Arab militant infiltration have been a problem) -a mission that we have not provided forces for and that increases force requirements.
So right away you needed the equivalent of a police force and a border patrol (The US has 2.3 police per 1000-but how many would we need if we emptied the jails and prisons, and if there were organized hostile forces? The numbers are not exactly comparable because police have a lower duty cycle than military forces, but offsetting this is that military forces have a lower "tooth to tail" ratio because they need to provide all their own logistics.). You also needed to establish local governments, and you needed dedicated counter-insurgency forces. That begins to give you an idea of why the needed ratio would be probably higher than what has worked elsewhere. The looting (which seems to have been a continuation of war by other means) right after the military victory showed how out of control things were-although partly our forces seem to have not been told it was part of their job to provide law and order, in addition to the numbers and the types of forces being inadequate for this mission.
Now if we had been able to set up a truly legitimate Iraqi authority, then these needs might have been relatively brief-but in fact because of the Kurd/Sunni/Shia distinctions and because of DoD's misguided dalliance with Chalabi, there was no realistic plan to develop a legitimate Iraqi government. What we should have done is quickly established legitimate local administrations (Amazingly, some US military units did this on their own initiative but there was no overall plan or doctrine for doing so and so the results have varied greatly) and then built upward from there-the whole governing council has been mostly a distraction. And we should have done this under military occupation, rather than wasting the effort setting up the parallel CPA structure-which barely gets out of the green zone in Baghdad. This of course would have involved the military and the Pentagon thinking seriously in advance about "nation building," which it refused to do.
In other words, the "right ratio" in Iraq would have been very large (maybe 20 per thousand for counterinsurgency plus 10 per thousand for policing and other civil functions plus whatever you need for border patrol) -or, better, ZERO, in the absence of a better political and social policy for occupied Iraq and a more legitimate occupation. My guess if you had gotten the reconstruction politics right, and if the war and the occupation had been more legitimate (UN cover, support in the Arab and Muslim world), and you had some real language capability and cultural understanding (either in US forces or by attaching Arab elements to US units), that you could have gotten away with something like 10 to 15 per thousand Military Police -type forces in addition to something approaching 5 per thousand war-fighters on hand on hand at the end of major conflict for engaging/deterring active insurgency and border patrol, and that you might have been able to get these forces out after a year or so... (I think you might have done with somewhat less than 20/1000 for the country as a whole because the Kurdish areas and large stretches of the South could have been much easier problems than the "Sunni Triangle"-Ideally you would have liked to start out at something like 25 per thousand and rapidly tapered off as situations allowed-but this would clearly have required major participation by non-US forces.) But I don't think even 100/1000 would have been enough with the kind of units we deployed (essentially no Arabic language capacity and no skill or doctrine in political and social reconstruction) in the context of an occupation with very limited political legitimacy-in fact deploying such units in this context might have just produced pitched urban battles earlier, and mobilized the whole Arab world against us.
April 12, 2004
Loyalty down?
From the New York Times:
President Bush said on Sunday that the intelligence briefing he received on Al Qaeda one month before the Sept. 11 strike contained no specific "indication of a terrorist attack" on American soil. He also defended the adequacy of his response to the warnings that terrorists in the United States might be planning hijackings.
Mr. Bush, in his first public remarks since the release of his top-secret briefing Saturday evening, played down the urgency of the information he was given at his ranch 36 days before terrorists flew airplanes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania. In doing so, Mr. Bush echoed the testimony last week by his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, before the commission investigating the attacks, which had pushed for the release of the briefing.
"I am satisfied that I never saw any intelligence that indicated there was going to be an attack on America — at a time and a place, an attack," Mr. Bush said after attending Easter services in Fort Hood, Tex. "Of course we knew that America was hated by Osama bin Laden. That was obvious. The question was, who was going to attack us, when and where, and with what."
Still, Mr. Bush for the first time suggested that others in his administration may not have done enough to head off the attacks. "That's what the 9/11 commission should look into, and I hope it does," he said.
[snip]
Samuel Popkin, a professor of political science at the University of California in San Diego, said that Mr. Bush's first response on the subject would not do much to staunch what he, too, described as a significant threat to his re-election.
"Truman said, `The buck stops here,' " Mr. Popkin said. "Bush is saying, `The buck never got to me.' "
Feh.
This, it seems to me, is the sort of character issue that, properly exploited, could swing the election.
Instead of standing up, Bush is pointing the finger at everyone but himself. And after the campaign his buddies have been waging to discredit the 9-11 Commission, it's a little much for him to suggest that he needs the Commission to tell him which of his subordinates dropped the ball.
Is nothing enough to do about a warning?
Logically, one of the following two propositions must be true:
1. A President, confronted with the warning in the August 6 Presidential Daily Briefing that Bin Laden was "determined to strike in U.S." coming on top of an earlier briefing from the CIA that predicted a terrorist strike by Osama bin Laden "in the coming weeks" which "will be spectacular and designed to inflict mass casualties against U.S. facilities or interests," and further said that "Attack preparations have been made. Attack will occur with little or no warning," ought to do nothing about it except to spend the next month on vacation and address the nation about the threat posed by stem cell research.
2. President Bush, confronted with those warnings, did less than he should have done.
I can't really think of a third alternative.
The Poorman has more. (And scroll up a couple for the absolutely generic blog entry.)
April 11, 2004
Mistakes were made
Fareed Zakaria has a convincing-sounding rundown of the mistakes that put us in our current position in Iraq. (Robin Wright has a different list in the Washington Post.)
Zakaria and Wright both quote what seems like a crucial number, and one I hadn't heard before: based on experience elsewhere, the estimated troop strength required for effective pacification is 20 per 1000 population, which would have indicated an occupying army of about 500,000. (Recall Gen. Shinseki getting publicly dissed by Rummy for saying we would need several hundred thousand?) Instead, we have about 6 soldiers per thousand Iraqis. (And, Zakaria points out, an inadequate number of civilians in the CPA as well.) [Update: The Defense Department planned to have drawn down the force to 30,000 by late summer of 2003.]
An alternative to more U.S. troops might have been the recruitment of Iraqi forces (assuming that we were going to dismantle the existing Iraqi Army). But that effort, it seems to me, was probably doomed from the outset given the miserable pay offered to the soldiers and officers of the reconstituted Iraqi army: $50/mo. for the rank and file and $180/mo. for the officers. Is it any wonder those troops have melted away or simply refused to fight in the current crisis?
It seems like a case of insane penny-wisdom. Do the arithmetic: 100,000 soldiers at $2500/yr. would only only come to $250 million per year, a drop in the bucket compared to the $100 billion or so we're likely to spend this year. Why be cheap about it?
More generally, as Zakaria notes, spreading more of our money around among the Iraqis to produce a large number of locals with a financial stake in the success of the occupation would probably have done more good than spending the same money on huge contracts for U.S. firms.
Of course, the best time to buy support is when you aren't desperate. Still, if I were in Bremer's shoes I'd be reconsidering the pay levels for the Iraqi army, police, and civil service.
As things now stand, Zakaria thinks that we'd better start dealing with Sistani and try to internationalize the occupation. He thinks it isn't too late. I hope he's right.
Continue reading "Mistakes were made"April 10, 2004
Uh-oh, Pt. 4: The IGC is off the reservation
One IGC member resigns, another threatens to after meeting with Moqtar al-Sadr. Human Rights Minister resigns.
I'd say this is half-way between an "uh-oh" and an "oh, sh!t!"
Query: Assuming the handover to Iraqi sovereignty goes through as planned on June 30, what happens if the IGC, then the sovereign government of Iraq, orders a cease-fire rather than just voting a resolution in favor of a cease-fire, or invites the United States to pack up and leave?
April 09, 2004
Afghanistan spirals down
Meanwhile, Matt Yglesias notes that Afghanistan, too, is going to Hell in a handbasket. And, thanks to being tied up in Iraq and having terminally annoyed most of the countries we ought to be able to draw on for help, there's not actually a whole lot we can do about it.
If you were Kim Jong Il, wouldn't you think this a propitious moment to force a confrontation with the US?
[Update: Matt says Kim is already doing so, by going ahead with his nuclear program, and we just aren't confronting back.]
And aren't you glad we got rid of all those foreign policy amateurs from the Clinton Administration and turned our national security over to a team of seasoned professionals who know what they're doing?
Why is it "pro-war" to pretend that things are going well?
Kevin Drum is a little bit shocked at the stubborn blindness of some of the warbloggers at how badly things are going, but he regards a certain tendency to optimism as natural: "I know that war supporters need to support the war," he says.
Actually, I think that's just about backwards.
Having never been certain that invading Iraq was a good idea, I'm not now certain that it was in fact a bad one. And whether it was a good decision or not, I'm still a "war supporter" in the sense of thinking that, having invaded, we need to observe Napoleon's principle: "If you start out to take Vienna, take Vienna." But that "pro-war" viewpoint makes me more, not less, interested in knowing, and saying, just how badly things are going at the moment.
I never thought that Iraq was going to be a working liberal democracy, or even a reasonable approximation, anytime soon. (According to the neocons, that made me a racist, if I recall correctly.) Now the odds of that seem even longer than they were. But there's a difference between a mediocre outcome and a disastrous one, and I'd like to see us stick around and pay what it costs, in blood and treaure, to achieve mediocrity.
Minimizing how badly things are going right now does not, however, facilitate that outcome. Yes, predicting that the current adventure will end badly, linked with the proposal that we cut and run, does tend to encourage the other side. But noting that things are, at this very moment, going to Hell in a handbasket isn't "anti-war."
If things are, at this very moment, going to Hell in a handbasket, the logical thing to do is try to get them back under control, whether that means sending more troops (our own or somebody else's), cutting a deal with Sistani on the terms he's now in a position to demand rather than the terms we were in a position to offer two weeks ago, or even calling the President back from his vacation.
If you, like me, would like the United States to win instead of losing, then you should, like me, be toweringly angry at those, whether in Washington, in the media, or in Blogspace, who are feeding us the happy h.s. about how, in Kevin's phrase, "everything is hunky-dory." The claim that, right now, things are going well in Iraq is (in a very short-sighted view) pro-Bush, but it sure as hell isn't pro-war. Not if "pro-war" means "wanting our side to win."
The first step in fixing something is noticing that it's broken.
Update Tacitus, indubitably pro-war, thinks that things are bad and that the Administration isn't levelling with the country:
Resolute optimism, after a certain point, becomes a form of dishonesty. Not a lie, precisely, but less than truth. Self-delusion? Willful deception? There's no telling. What is certain is that this revolt makes the Administration look the fools -- and for once, rightly so.
Tacitus is more convinced than I am that the the uprisings can be defeated militarily; I would have thought that depended on what proportion of the Iraqi population is hostile, which at the moment we don't know. But he and I agree that facing the problem honestly is the first step toward dealing with it. (He's also convinced that Bush will lose the election, which still seems to me, as it does to the betting markets, less than an even-money proposition.)
Tacitus thinks that we got where we are by a series of blunders:
It's not the result of any one tragically wrong decision or miscalculation; rather, it's the end result of a year of accumulating bad calls and wishful thinking: disbanding the army plus not confronting Sadr plus giving the Shi'a a veto plus the premature policy of withdrawal from urban centers plus the undermanning of the occupation force (and the concurrent kneecapping of Shinseki) plus the setting of a ludicrously early "sovereignty" date plus the early tolerance of lawlessness and looting plus illusory reconstruction accomplishments plus etc., etc., etc. In short, the failure of the occupation to be an occupation in any sense that history and Arab peoples would recognize. Bad calls of such consistency are the product of a fundamentally bad system.
So far, though Tacitus is one of the leading warbloggers, his thoughtful post has garnered not a single major link from the right side of blogspace. I wonder why not?
Second update Re-reading this by daylight, it sounds more naive than I like to think I am. Of course it's natural for those who favored invading Iraq to see mostly good news from there, because bad news suggests that they might have been wrong. Contrariwise for opponents of invading Iraq.
There is no more destructive force in human affairs -- not greed, not hatred -- than the desire to have been right. Non-attachment to possessions is of trivial value in comparison with non-attachment to opinions.
Uh-oh, Pt. 3
Reuters has grim-sounding news from Iraq, including a report that Bremer has called a unilateral cease-fire in Fallujah and is seeking some sort of talks with the insurgents.
But Reuters does not confirm (nor does anyone else I can find) "River's" report that all the mosques were calling for jihad. Indeed, this paragraph, as grim as it is, suggests that no general call for jihad has yet gone out:
"America is the big devil and Britain and Blair are the lesser devils," a preacher at Baghdad's Um al-Qura mosque told an angry congregation. Reflecting a growing hostility to outsiders, one worshipper said: "When we get the order for jihad (holy war), no foreigner will be safe in Iraq."
Meanwhile, "River" describes the fighting in Fallujah from an Iraqi perspective.
If Arab News is to be believed -- and it claims to be reporting on televised interviews -- at least two members of the IGC are harshly criticizing the CPA:
“We are seeing the liquidation of a whole city,” Governing Council member Ghazi Ajil Al-Yawar told Al-Jazeera television, saying he might resign in protest over the treatment of Fallujah. “These operations were a mass punishment for the people of Fallujah,” Adnan Pachachi, one of the most pro-American members of the US-picked Governing Council, told Al-Arabiya TV. “It was not right to punish all the people of Fallujah and we consider these operations by the Americans unacceptable and illegal.”
It sounds as if they're seeing the same thing "River" sees. If that's right, Andrew Sullivan's call for "focussed ferocity" as the solution to all our problems seems ... misplaced, to say the least. (And if I were a Christian, I'd think his linking that suggestion to the Resurrection was nothing short of obscene.)
On the other hand, Mohammed of Iraq the Model still thinks the 9th of April is a day to celebrate.
Meantime, I missed this chilling story from the New York Times:
WASHINGTON, April 7 — United States forces are confronting a broad-based Shiite uprising that goes well beyond supporters of one militant Islamic cleric who has been the focus of American counterinsurgency efforts, United States intelligence officials said Wednesday.
That assertion contradicts repeated statements by the Bush administration and American officials in Iraq. On Wednesday, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that they did not believe the United States was facing a broad-based Shiite insurgency. Administration officials have portrayed Moktada al-Sadr, a rebel Shiite cleric who is wanted by American forces, as the catalyst of the rising violence within the Shiite community of Iraq.
But intelligence officials now say that there is evidence that the insurgency goes beyond Mr. Sadr and his militia, and that a much larger number of Shiites have turned against the American-led occupation of Iraq, even if they are not all actively aiding the uprising.
A year ago, many Shiites rejoiced at the American invasion and the toppling of Saddam Hussein, a Sunni who had brutally repressed the Shiites for decades. But American intelligence officials now believe that hatred of the American occupation has spread rapidly among Shiites, and is now so large that Mr. Sadr and his forces represent just one element.
Meanwhile, American intelligence has not yet detected signs of coordination between the Sunni rebellion in Iraq's heartland and the Shiite insurgency. But United States intelligence says that the Sunni rebellion also goes far beyond former Baathist government members. Sunni tribal leaders, particularly in Al Anbar Province, home to Ramadi, the provincial capital, and Falluja, have turned against the United States and are helping to lead the Sunni rebellion, intelligence officials say.
The result is that the United States is facing two broad-based insurgencies that are now on parallel tracks.
The Bush administration has sought to portray the opposition much more narrowly. In the Sunni insurgency, the White House and the Pentagon have focused on the role of the former leaders of the Baath Party and Saddam Hussein's government, while in the Shiite rebellion they have focused almost exclusively on the role of Mr. Sadr. Mr. Rumsfeld told reporters at the Pentagon that the fighting in Iraq was just the work of "thugs, gangs and terrorists," and not a popular uprising. General Myers added that "it's not a Shiite uprising. Sadr has a very small following."
According to some experts on Iraq's Shiites, the uprising has spread to many Shiites who are not followers of Mr. Sadr. "There is a general mood of anti-Americanism among the people in the streets," said Ghassan R. al-Attiyah, executive director of the Iraq Foundation for Development and Democracy in Baghdad. "They identify with Sadr not because they believe in him but because they have their own grievances."
Was Condi Lousy?
Much as I regret that the Condi Rice Show should be distracting attention from the problem of what the hell to do right now in Iraq, I've been waiting for the reviews to come in. If, like me, you're hoping for a change of personnel come January, you had to worry that Rice would manage to bamboozle the viewers.
I didn't watch, but the reviews seem to be coming in rather negative. (Or judge for yourself: here's the transcript.) The right has been mostly criticizing the Commissioners, apparently to avoid having to comment on Rice's performance. And Slate, which generally leans left but doesn't make a fetish of it, has two absolutey devastating pieces, one by Fred Kaplan, one by William Saletan.
Kaplan's lead gives you the flavor of his piece:
One clear inference can be drawn from Condoleezza Rice's testimony before the 9/11 commission this morning: She has been a bad national security adviser—passive, sluggish, and either unable or unwilling to tie the loose strands of the bureaucracy into a sensible vision or policy. In short, she has not done what national security advisers are supposed to do.
Kaplan then moves in for the kill:
The key moment came an hour into the hearing, when former Watergate prosecutor Richard Ben-Veniste took his turn at asking questions. Up to this point, Rice had argued that the Bush administration could not have done much to stop the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Yes, the CIA's sirens were sounding all summer of an impending strike by al-Qaida, but the warnings were of an attack overseas.
Ben-Veniste brought up the much-discussed PDB—the president's daily briefing by CIA Director George Tenet—of Aug. 6, 2001. For the first time, he revealed the title of that briefing: "Bin Laden Determined To Attack Inside the United States."
Rice insisted this title meant nothing. The document consisted of merely "historical information" about al-Qaida—various plans and attacks of the past. "This was not a 'threat report,' " she said. It "did not warn of any coming attack inside the United States." Later in the hearing, she restated the point: "The PDB does not say the United States is going to be attacked. It says Bin Laden would like to attack the United States."
To call this distinction "academic" would be an insult to academia.
Wait, there's more:
Responding to Ben-Veniste, Rice acknowledged that Clarke had told her that al-Qaida had "sleeper cells" inside the Untied States. But, she added, "There was no recommendation that we do anything" about them. She gave the same answer when former Navy Secretary John Lehman, a Republican and outspoken Bush defender restated the question about sleeper cells. There was, Rice said, "no recommendation of what to do about it." She added that she saw "no indication that the FBI was not adequately pursuing" these cells.
Here Rice revealed, if unwittingly, the roots—or at least some roots—of failure. Why did she need a recommendation to do something? Couldn't she make recommendations herself? Wasn't that her job? Given the huge spike of traffic about a possible attack (several officials have used the phrase "hair on fire" to describe the demeanor of those issuing the warnings), should she have been satisfied with the lack of any sign that the FBI wasn't tracking down the cells? Shouldn't she have asked for positive evidence that it was tracking them down?
And most devastatingly:
Former Democratic Rep. Tim Roemer posed the question directly: Wasn't it your responsibility to make sure that the word went down the chain, that orders were followed up by action?
Just as the Bush administration has declined to admit any mistakes, Condi Rice declined to take any responsibility. No, she answered, the FBI had that responsibility. Crisis management? That was Dick Clarke's job. "[If] I needed to do anything," she said, "I would have been asked to do it. I was not asked to do it."
Jamie Gorelick, a former assistant attorney general (and thus someone who knows the ways of the FBI), drove the point home. The commission's staff has learned, she told Rice, that the high-level intelligence warnings were not sent down the chain of command. The secretary of transportation had no idea about the threat-chatter nor did anyone at the Federal Aviation Administration. FBI field offices and special agents also heard nothing about it. Yes, FBI headquarters sent out a few messages, but have you seen them? Gorelick asked. "They are feckless," she went on. "They don't tell anybody anything. They don't put anybody at battle stations."
Bob Kerrey was blunter still. "One of the first things I learned when I came into this town," he said, "was that CIA and FBI don't talk to each other." It has long been reported that regional agents deep inside the FBI wrote reports about strange Arabs taking flight lessons and that analysts inside the CIA were reporting that Arab terrorists might be inside the United States. If both pieces of information were forced up to the tops of their respective bureaucracies, couldn't someone have put them together? "All it had to do was be put on intel links and the game's over," Kerrey said, perhaps a bit dramatically, the conspiracy "would have been rolled up."
And here's Saletan, exploring the Condi Rice Dictionary:
Gathering threats: Unclear perils that previous administrations irresponsibly failed to confront quickly. Example: For more than 20 years, the terrorist threat gathered, and America's response across several administrations of both parties was insufficient. Historically, democratic societies have been slow to react to gathering threats, tending instead to wait to confront threats until they are too dangerous to ignore or until it is too late.
Vague threats: Unclear perils that the Bush administration understandably failed to confront quickly. Example: The threat reporting that we received in the spring and summer of 2001 was not specific as to time, nor place, nor manner of attack. … The threat reporting was frustratingly vague.
Specific warnings: The precise, useful alerts the administration issued based on the information it got. Example: I asked Dick [Clarke] to make sure that domestic agencies were aware of the heightened threat period and were taking appropriate steps to respond. … The FAA issued at least five civil aviation security information circulars to all U.S. airlines and airport security personnel, including specific warnings about the possibility of hijacking.
Briefing: Addition to a warning, without which the warning is insufficient. Example: To the best of my knowledge, Mr. Chairman, this kind of analysis about the use of airplanes as weapons actually was never briefed to us.
Recommendation: Addition to a briefing, without which the briefing is insufficient. Example: In the memorandum that Dick Clarke sent me on Jan. 25, he mentions sleeper cells. There is no mention or recommendation of anything that needs to be done about them.
This last item, if Saletan isn't quoting out of context, sounds really damning. "My counterterrorism chief told me that there were terrorist sleeper cells in the U.S., but he didn't suggest anything needed to be done about it, so I didn't?"
Loyal Republican Howard Kurtz has a round-up. He can't pretend it was a good day for his side. But he does start out with a truly breathtaking act of chutzpah: to demonstrate that the Administration wasn't really asleep at the switch, he points out that the media weren't heavily covering al-Qaeda in advance of 9-11, as if the media didn't take much of their lead on such matters from the government.
Garance Frank-Ruta at Tapped wasn't impressed, asking "Where's that Buck Stop, Again"
I don't know of any public opinion polling on the topic, but it doesn't sound as if Rice did herself, or her boss, any good.
Phil Carter on contract fighters
Phil Carter has a piece in Slate concluding that contract fighters engaged in combat operations, since they're not either "soldiers" or "noncombatants," might fall into the legal category of "unlawful combatants," with possibly disastrous results. He's also worried about the problems of discipline and coordination. (Phil doesn't go into the Constitutional issues, which I regard as substantial.)
Phil has some proposed fixes for the operational problems, but despairs of fixing the legal problems.
He doesn't consider what seems to me the most straightforward approach: have in Iraq, or elsewhere there's likely to be fighting, enough regular, uniformed, sworn soldiers, with officers appointed by Act of Congress, to handle any assignment that might involve killing someone, and restrict contractors to support missions.
Preventing drinking by problem drinkers
Some time ago I offered some thoughts in this space about how to take the bottle away from dangerous drunks: from people who, under the influence, drive or commit assaults.
Jim Leitzel at Vice Squad reports on an alternative approach: an ankle bracelet that allows continuous remote monitoring of alcohol consumption by measuring the alcohol that transpires through the pores. Expensive ($12/day) but worth it in many cases. Presumably the price would come down in mass application.
April 08, 2004
The Saudi Embassy cash scandal
Mike Isikoff at Newsweek has more on the mystery of what Prince Bandar was doing with all those millions of dollars in cash he didn't want Riggs Bank to fill out currency forms about. (Who does Bandar think he is: Rush Limbaugh?)
The funniest line in the Newsweek story -- though Isikoff doesn't seem to get the joke -- is from a Saudi embassy spokesman, pointing out (in Isikoff's words ) than "an earlier FBI probe into embassy funds that were moved to alleged associates of the 9/11 hijackers has not led to any charges." Duhhhhhhhh.... can you say "diplomatic immunity?" I was sure you could. People at Riggs bank might face charges; all the Saudis risk is being declared "persona non grata": i.e., booted out of the country.
Newsweek also runs a picture that may be the answer to a question Glenn Reynolds has been asking: Is there a Saudi "mole" in Washington with access to top-secret information and the capacity to deflect attention from the Saudi/terrorist link, and, if so, who could it be?
Please, Your Highness, haven't I always been faithful?
Uh-oh (pt. 2)
The Iraqi blogger "River" has been strongly critical of the war and of the occupation, so take what she says with the appropriate quantity of NaCl. But her work is full of sharp observation. The latest is well worth reading in its entirety. Here's the sentence that sent chills up my spine:
And as I blog this, all the mosques, Sunni and Shi’a alike, are calling for Jihad...
Zeyad of Healing Iraq is equally discouraging.
So is Raed (friend of "Salam Pax" and namesake of the blog). Friday is the anniversary of the fall of Baghdad. (How time flies when you're having fun!) Raed reports more cases of Iraqi security forces crossing over. He also claims that some members of the Interim Governing Council have resigned. (I haven't seen that confirmed; Islam Online reports only one threatened resignation.)
Another Iraqi blogger repeats what he says is a joke making the rounds in Baghdad: The Americans won't hand over control on June 30, because by then they won't have any control left to hand over.
Salam Pax reported two days ago that ordinary Iraqis, including members of the security forces, were too afraid of the Sadrists to stand up to them:
You have to be careful about what you say about al-Sadir. Their hands reach every where and you don't want to be on their sh*t list. Every body, even the GC is very careful how they formulate their sentences and how they describe Sadir's Militias.
Salam Pax has been accused of Ba'athist sympathies, but he certainly doesn't sound at all happy about the Sadrist upsurge:
They are thugs, thugs thugs. There you have it.
Omar of Iraq the Model, who seems solidly on our side -- two days ago welcomed the arrest warrent for Moqtada al-Sadr -- reports that a general strike has been called in Baghdad on Saturday, with threats against those who do not comply.
Ays of Iraq at a Glance, has some choice words not just about Sadr himself but about Sadr city. He reports that 75% of the residents there are "thieves and murderers, and adds that they breed "just like the rabbits."
Ays, though a strong supporter of the occupation, seems nostalgic for the good old days:
Nearly a similar situation happened in 1999 in ‘Al-Sadr city’ when Saddam killed Muqtada’s father.. the angry people in that disgusting neighborhood made a simple chaos in the beginning , do you know what happened ? do you know how Saddam dealt with them?... a few cars went there immediately and a few men got out of the cars carrying different types of guns and rifles and started to fire continuously at them until all those people entered their houses and many of them were killed and left on the streets… then Saddam’s men completed their mission and went back..
I don’t want to say that the same thing should be done.. but I just want to say that the GC and CPA must control this freedom because it’s used improperly..
Having made all this Spiro-Agnew-sounding noise (do I detect the voice of a Sunni talking about the Shi'a?), Ays does report what seems to be good news: in Basra, where he lives, the tribal chieftains have laid down the law:
And some districts here in Basra came to a great idea, the Sheiks of many tribes held a meeting and decided to sign on papers promising that any person dares to breach the peace in their areas will be arrested or killed immediately and no one will protect him even if he was one of their tribes.. this meeting relieved the people so much… (Ellipses in source)
If any reader is aware of additional blogging from Iraq that carries anything resmbling good news, please let me know and I will link. Similarly, if anyone can confirm or disconfirm the claim by "River" that jihad was being preached in all the mosques, I'd like to hear of it.
I find it a little bit scary that the "real" press is so much less informative than the Iraqi bloggers.
Update Stratfor.com says that a real catastrophe is possible, but not likely: their best guess is that Sadr is acting on Sistani's behalf, reminding us that we're in Iraq on his sufferance. That's somewhat reassuring. But that suggests that our long-term position in Iraq may be a source of weakness rather than strength, especially vis-a-vis the Iranian mullahs.
Note that the recent behavior of OPEC contradicts the view that invading Iraq would make neighboring countries more pliable.
Whether the invasion was a good gamble or not in prospect is no longer the most important question, but I'd have to say right now that having backed it, as I did, isn't looking like a very good move.
Of course, the alternative might well have been even worse.
Did Rice have to testify today?
Am I the only one who thinks it was bizarre to have the Condi Rice testimony go on as scheduled today, in the middle of what is shaping up as the major battle of the War in Iraq? If the President's National Security Adviser didn't have something better to do today, we need a new National Security Adviser.
Of course, any time there's an inquiry (whether it's a Congressional hearing, a Commission, or a criminal investigation) preparing testimony is going to take time and attention away from actually getting the work done. That's part of the price of democracy. [It's obviously an abuse when inquiry is used as a means of punishment and interference, as it was so effectively used against the Clinton Administration.]
But this week isn't like last week or the week before, and we have to hope that it won't be like next week or the week after. This week the success of our attempt to give Iraq a workable, non-tyrannical, non-theocratic government and civil peace is on the line.
No, I didn't think about this until last night. But then I don't think about this stuff for a living. And yes, the Commission is straining hard to meet its deadline in the face of White House stonewalling. Still, I fault Kane, Hamilton, and Zelikow for not trying to move the schedule around. Or maybe they offered and Rice declined. But Condi's skill, or lack thereof, as a tap-dancer just seems like the wrong thing to be paying attention to right now.
Neal Stephenson, call your office
Does "private army" sound as ominous to you as it does to me? Now that the Daily Kos flap has died down, can we start a serious conversation about how much of our fighting we want done by people who aren't under military discipline?
I expect Phil Carter to tell me what I'm supposed to think about this. (Update: Phil does so in Slate; he's worried that contract personnel may be "unlawful combatants" under the relevant international laws. I respond here.)
Uh-oh
Looks as if Sistani is weaseling:
Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, issued his first official comments about the violence Wednesday evening, condemning the U.S. approach to dealing with the Shiite uprising. In a written statement bearing his seal, Sistani called for both sides to pursue a peaceful resolution and "refrain from escalating steps that will lead to more chaos and bloodshed."
It has been suggested that the decision to force a confrontation with Sadr by closing his newspaper and issuing a warrant for his sidekick was a carefully-planned one. That wasn't foolish on its face: there are times to force an issue. If we knew we were going to have to fight him, and his power was growing, then sooner might have been better than later, and the overlap with Fallujah was just bad luck.
But if the confrontation was planned, why wasn't overwhelming military force ready to deal with the predictable blowback? And why hadn't someone made absolutely sure that Sistani was on board?
Maybe Sistani's even-handedness is just a bargaining ploy, but it doesn't look that way.
I've been thinking that the situation looked worse than it actually was. Now I'm not.
Ugh.
Update: Here's what Sistani said, according to Zeyad of Healing Iraq, who also provides some analysis:
"We condemn the behaviour of occupation forces in dealing with the current events, and we also condemn any trespass against public and private property, or any other conduct that may disrupt security and obstruct Iraqis from their jobs in serving the people".
Note: no condemnation of killing the occupiers.
April 07, 2004
War on terror, war on porn
Having taken a couple of hard shots at Glenn Reynolds, I owe it to him to give him credit when he gets one right, as I think he does about the latest Justice Department anti-porn push. I agree that it's a thoroughly bad move, and I agree that in this case the bad decision is probably linked to Ashcroft personally.
This isn't about kiddie porn, or even about the truly outrageous hardcore stuff: apparently Ashcroft has hired a veteran anti-porn crusader, who intends to go after the stuff that gets piped into hotel rooms.
Reynolds points to Jeff Jarvis, who reports a unanimously hostile response from the blogosphere. If anyone finds a dissenting voice, let me know and I'll link to it.
Everyone, including Glenn, points out how silly this looks in the face of the terrorist threat; don't those guys have anything better to do?
I actually don't think that's the real issue here, since the actual resource level being devoted to this nonsense seems to be moderate: 32 prosecutors and investigators are said to be the core of the effort. (DoJ, including the U.S. Attorneys offices, employs several thousand lawyers; the FBI alone has 12,000 agents.)
The real issue is intrusiveness, and the perception that the powers of the Federal government are being used to push a narrow-minded, moralistic agenda. This sort of policy will tend to alienate voters and legislators who might otherwise, in the aftermath of 9-11, be prepared to cut investigators and prosecutors some procedural slack, and to support more spending on law enforcement.
Announcing the anti-porn drive now seems to me an act of self-indulgence on Ashcroft's part, reflecting the same fundamental unseriousness about "being at war" reflected in the Administration's fiscal policies, its indifference to measures that might actually reduce our dependence on imported oil, and its hardball partisanship. After Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt replaced "Dr. New Deal" with "Dr. Win the War."
If Mr. Bush really thinks of himself as a "war president," he ought to think whether "Dr. Please the Base" needs to spend more time at home with his family.
Update
A reader points me to Justin Katz of Dust in the Light, who thinks enforcing the porn laws is a Good Thing. He compares the suffering of religious people subjected to an endless barrage of sexually suggestive material to the suffering of non-relgious people if they were subjected to a comparable barrage of prosyletism, which I wouldn't have thought to be the strongest way to make his case. He also makes the point made above about the relatively small resource commitment, though I think he understates what that commitment is.
(In an update, Katz links to an Instapundit post on sexual activity as a preventative of prostate cancer, but doubts that "watching other people have sex" has comparable benefits. I don't think I agree, but I'm disinclined to explain why on a weblog likely to be read by minors. If Mr. Katz is really curious, I'm sure that former Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders could explain it to him, with diagrams if necessary.)
Jim Leitzel at Vice Squad knew about the crackdown before I did.
Second update Using Eugene Volokh's mind to figure out why a crackdown on porn is a bad idea seems a little bit like using a howitzer to swat a fly, but my, oh my, it's fun to watch!
Third update Justin Katz responds to Volokh, arguing that the crackdown will reduce the extent to which porn is pushed in the faces of people who aren't interested in seeing it.
He could be right. I still doubt this is a good time to be waging this particular crusade.
An Animal stampede
The Washington Monthly's decision to hide Kevin Drum's blogroll in a pull-down menu no one is likely to find was a noticeable blow to the left side of the blogosphere, at least if my experience is typical.
On a typical day with no item link, CalPundit used to send me about 120 visitors. That site still sends me about 20 a day, suggesting that some people are visiting it just for the blogroll, but the Washington Monthly site sent a total of 21 visitors last week.
However, today I had my first item link from the new site, and it produced the biggest one-hour surge my site has ever experienced. For the day, that link alone produced more than 1100 hits. ( Matthew Yglesias, Cursor, and Eugene Volokh also made big contributions to this site's biggest day, at 4500 unique visitors and 7000+ pageviews, compared to weekday norms of just under 2000 unique visitors and just over 3000 pageviews.)
I suppose if the spinning hit-counter from an Instapundit link is an Instalanche, the analogue from a Political Animal link must be an Animal Stampede.
However, I still hope Washington Monthly reconsiders its blogroll policy.
Drugs and Violence in El Salvador
When not engaged in blogging, I sometimes teach, and do actual policy analysis. I just visited El Salvador for the second time (courtesy of the United Nations Devlopment Program's Sociedad sin Violencia project to talk to officials and citizens there about how to modify drug policy to reduce the violence incident to drug trafficking and drug (especially alcohol) consumption.
It turns out that El Salvador has a big gang problem (apparently imported from Los Angeles). That I hadn't known before my travels, so it's not reflected in what I wrote. I'm hoping to go back this summer with a team including David Kennedy to plan an initiative to reduce gang violence, on the model of Boston's Project Cease-Fire.
In the meantime, though, I thought I might as well show you what I'd been up to. Perhaps readers who know more of Salvadoran conditions than I do can provide some useful advice.
Controlling Drug-related Violence (Speech text from 2002
Reducing the Contribution of the Drug Problem to Violence in El Salvador (Report from 2004)
A uniter, not a divider
Looks as if Mr. Bush, not satisfied with unifying the opposition to himself and his policies at home, has managed to unite the long-hostile Sunni and Shia of Iraq. Nobel Peace Prize, anyone?
Update: More here.
Glenn Reynolds defends an outpost of black racism
The notoriously black racist and anti-Semitic Nation of Islam uses a column in the notoriously black racist and anti-Semitic Amsterdam News to object to the fact that the liberal radio network Air American is taking over notoriously black racist and anti-Semitic WLIB-AM in New York. Alton Maddox, the notorious black racist and anti-Semite (you'll recall him, for example, defending Louis Farrakhan's characterization of Jews as "blood-suckers"), agrees.
Glenn Reynolds, who loves denouncing the "moral rot of the left" because someone to his left has failed to denounce something, notes their unhappiness under the heading "Air America is being blasted for lack of diversity," and concludes (having noted gently that he thinks Maddox's column is "overheated") "It suggests that Air America is doing some damage with a key constituency."
Yes, it's possible that Air America will cost the Democrats the votes of some black racists and anti-Semites. I think we can handle it.
I genuinely don't know what Glenn is up to here. Certainly he's not really sorry to see a radio station that used to have discussions about how "the Jews" were responsible for the Trade Center bombings go off the air. And certainly he's not really sympathetic to Alton Maddox, the Amsterdam News, or the Nation of Islam. I can only conclude that his hatred of liberalism is so insensate that it has deprived him, in this instance, of his critical faculties.
[You have to read Maddox's column to get the full flavor of what Afrocentric lunacy sounds like. There's nothing especially offensive about it, unless you count the misappropriation of the term "genocide" for something so trivial: it's just utterly silly.
For thousands of years, Africans had total and undivided access to the airwaves. Ancient Egyptians understood the principles of aerodynamics well before the Wright Brothers embarked on a very short flight in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, a century ago.
In communications, Africans were peerless. The talking drum allowed our ancestors to communicate from village to village. This was the forerunner of talk radio. There was also the healing drum. All modem communications are rooted in the talking drum. ]
Update Reynolds responds (without linking): he doesn't approve of Maddox or the Nation of Islam. Right. We're agreed on that.
I'm still trying to figure out what his point was, though. Shouldn't he be praising liberals for their willingness to take on black racists?
