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June 24, 2005
The War President
In this former imperial capital, every square seems to
contain a giant statue of a Habsburg on horseback, posing as
a conquering hero.
America's founders knew all too well how war appeals to
the vanity of rulers and their thirst for glory. That's why
they took care to deny presidents the kingly privilege of
making war at their own discretion.
But after 9/11 President Bush, with obvious relish,
declared himself a "war president." And he kept the nation
focused on martial matters by morphing the pursuit of Al
Qaeda into a war against Saddam Hussein.
In November 2002, Helen Thomas, the veteran White House
correspondent, told an audience, "I have never covered a
president who actually wanted to go to war" - but she made
it clear that Mr. Bush was the exception. And she was right.
Leading the nation wrongfully into war strikes at the
heart of democracy. It would have been an unprecedented
abuse of power even if the war hadn't turned into a military
and moral quagmire. And we won't be able to get out of that
quagmire until we face up to the reality of how we got in.
Let me talk briefly about what we now know about the
decision to invade Iraq, then focus on why it matters.
The administration has prevented any official inquiry
into whether it hyped the case for war. But there's plenty
of circumstantial evidence that it did.
And then there's the Downing Street Memo - actually the
minutes of a prime minister's meeting in July 2002 - in
which the chief of British overseas intelligence briefed his
colleagues about his recent trip to Washington.
"Bush wanted to remove Saddam," says the memo, "through
military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism
and W.M.D. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed
around the policy." It doesn't get much clearer than that.
The U.S. news media largely ignored the memo for five
weeks after it was
released in The Times of London. Then some asserted that
it was "old news" that Mr. Bush wanted war in the summer of
2002, and that W.M.D. were just an excuse. No, it isn't.
Media insiders may have suspected as much, but they didn't
inform their readers, viewers and listeners. And they have
never held Mr. Bush accountable for his repeated
declarations that he viewed war as a last resort.
Still, some of my colleagues insist that we should let
bygones be bygones. The question, they say, is what we do
now. But they're wrong: it's crucial that those responsible
for the war be held to account.
Let me explain. The United States will soon have to start
reducing force levels in Iraq, or risk seeing the volunteer
Army collapse. Yet the administration and its supporters
have effectively prevented any adult discussion of the need
to get out.
On one side, the people who sold this war, unable to face
up to the fact that their fantasies of a splendid little war
have led to disaster, are still peddling illusions: the
insurgency is in its "last throes," says Dick Cheney. On the
other, they still have moderates and even liberals
intimidated: anyone who suggests that the United States will
have to settle for something that falls far short of victory
is accused of being unpatriotic.
We need to deprive these people of their ability to
mislead and intimidate. And the best way to do that is to
make it clear that the people who led us to war on false
pretenses have no credibility, and no right to lecture the
rest of us about patriotism.
The good news is that the public seems ready to hear that
message - readier than the media are to deliver it. Major
media organizations still act as if only a small, left-wing
fringe believes that we were misled into war, but that
"fringe" now comprises much if not most of the population.
In a Gallup poll taken in early April - that is, before
the release of the Downing Street Memo - 50 percent of those
polled agreed with the proposition that the administration
"deliberately misled the American public" about Iraq's W.M.D.
In a new Rasmussen poll, 49 percent said that Mr. Bush was
more responsible for the war than Saddam Hussein, versus 44
percent who blamed Saddam.
Once the media catch up with the public, we'll be able to
start talking seriously about how to get out of Iraq.
E-mail:
krugman@nytimes.com |
