Iraq War: In the beginning

"I think we are winning.  Okay?  I think we're definitely winning.  I think we've been winning for some time." - Gen. Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on the Iraq War 04/26/05

"I just wonder if they will ever tell us the truth." - Harold Casey, Louisville, KY, October 2004.

As the news focus on the ways the Iraq War was sold to the Congress and the public, Bob Woodward's Plan of Attack (2004) has some interesting things to say.  Woodward left his days of being the crusading investigative reporter of Watergate fame long ago.  He's certainly no Sy Hersh.

Plan of Attack is a court history, written with the extensive cooperation of Bush adminstration officials and access to classified documents.  Despite it's essentially apologetic framing, though, some facts peep through that are disturbing for the official Party line.

For example, Woodward relates a meeting of Dear Leader Bush and Dark Lord Cheney with a group of Iraqi exiles in early January 2003.  This was before his famous 2003 State of the Union speech with its famous "16 words" and before the most disgraceful moment in Colin Powell's career, i.e., his presentation to the United Nations on Iraq's massive stores of WMDs.

At 2:15 P.M. on January 10 Bush and Cheney met privately with three leading Iraqi dissidents in the Oval Office.  The president was blunt.  "I believe in freedom and peace.  I believe Saddam Hussein is a threat to American and to the neighborhood," he said.  "He should disarm but he won't, therefore we will remove him from power.  We can't make him change his heart.  His heart is made of stone."

It was close to a declaration of war.

Does this sound like a man agonizing over whether to go to war?  Or hoping to avoid it through successful sanctions?

No one would dispute that Saddam had a heart of stone.  Whether that was reason to go to war is another question.  If Bush had any doubt on the heart-of-stone question, he had Dick cheney right there to consult, a true expert on that topic.

The Dark Lord exhibited his usual sense of judgment and foresight in the meeting:

"What are the elite [of Iraq] like?" Bush asked. "Are they well educated? Are there many left or have they been purged like in China?" He then said, "Let's say Saddam Hussein is gone. Now there's a void. What's your vision?"

Cheney, who had said little as usual, interjected, "We need to have a light hand in the postwar phase."

How's that working out, Dick?

I'm curious about Woodward's source for this meeting; his account reads stiffly.  Evidently, the meeting was some kind of publicity and/or protocol meeting.  But the questions he has Bush asking (like the one just quoted) seem oddly general for someone who had already decided to go to war against Iraq.

One exile said they needed an Iraqi leader modeled on Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan, and a governing council of some sort, plus access to the Internet, entertainment and food.

"We haven't reached conclusions," the president told them, ending the meeting. "I view you and the [Iraqi] Diaspora as partners.  Your job is to gather the people who want to help and rally their hears and souls.  My job is to rally the world and win the war. I'm not sure my job is to pick" the new leader for Iraq.  "I truly believe out of this will come peace between Israel and the Palestinians.  Maybe one year from now we will be toasting victory and talking about the transition to freedom." (my emphasis)

One of the three Iraqis (Woodward doesn't say which) told Bush and Cheney, "People will greet troops with flowers and sweets."

"Wars are easy to get into, but hard as hell to get out of." - George McGovern and Jim McGovern 06/06/05