Iraq Is a Fiasco Because Bush Put Politics First

There's an unfortunate truism in American politics: a politician can get away with lying if he gets the job done. The Bush Administration manipulated the case for war in Iraq and gave us a war we didn't need. But they failed miserably to get the job done. They failed because they repeatedly put politics first. The Washington Post has the story on the first six months during the Iraq reconstruction Gold Rush:

After the fall of Saddam Hussein's government in April 2003, the opportunity to participate in the U.S.-led effort to reconstruct Iraq attracted all manner of Americans -- restless professionals, Arabic-speaking academics, development specialists and war-zone adventurers. But before they could go to Baghdad, they had to get past Jim O'Beirne's office in the Pentagon.

To pass muster with O'Beirne, a political appointee who screens prospective political appointees for Defense Department posts, applicants didn't need to be experts in the Middle East or in post-conflict reconstruction. What seemed most important was loyalty to the Bush administration.

(snip)

Many of those chosen by O'Beirne's office to work for the Coalition Provisional Authority, which ran Iraq's government from April 2003 to June 2004, lacked vital skills and experience. A 24-year-old who had never worked in finance -- but had applied for a White House job -- was sent to reopen Baghdad's stock exchange. The daughter of a prominent neoconservative commentator and a recent graduate from an evangelical university for home-schooled children were tapped to manage Iraq's $13 billion budget, even though they didn't have a background in accounting.

The decision to send the loyal and the willing instead of the best and the brightest is now regarded by many people involved in the 3 1/2 -year effort to stabilize and rebuild Iraq as one of the Bush administration's gravest errors. Many of those selected because of their political fidelity spent their time trying to impose a conservative agenda on the postwar occupation that sidetracked more important reconstruction efforts and squandered goodwill among the Iraqi people, according to many people who participated in the reconstruction effort.

Americans need to stop pretending that George W. Bush knows what he's doing. We're lucky that there are professionals in the government Bush can't touch who have kept our nation safe. Then again, maybe it's been sheer luck we haven't had more terrorist attacks on American soil. Iraq is a fiasco because Bush put petty politics ahead of national security. It's the same in Katrina. Bush put politics ahead of rebuilding the areas hit by the hurricanes. Most Republicans in Congress are no different: they spend far too much time putting their party and their pockets ahead of what's important for the nation.

Steve Soto of The Left Coaster has it right on this issue:

A Page One in Sunday’s Washington Post outlines how the White House turned the Iraqi occupation into a large GOP patronage program, where the only qualification to serve wasn’t your expertise and training, but rather your sworn fealty to George W. Bush and his reelection.

Read this and weep. But every time the Democrats hear Bush challenge their patriotism for opposing him in Iraq, they can hang Iraq directly around his neck, and therefore tell voters that the threats we face have grown because Bush played politics with terrorism and our national security. There are a slew of messaging opportunities from this story, and it can blow a hole in the “stay with me on this or die” narrative that Bush is putting out there, simply by telling voters that he has turned Iraq into a Republican party playground rather than get the right people to secure the country.

If he did this with the biggest foreign policy mistake of the last several decades, why should voters let him continue to have a free hand in fighting the war on terror?

I subscribe to two newspapers, my local paper and The New York Times. Both papers today had Bush in his weird stressed-out press conference mode, scowling, leaning forward, talking the bullying language of a desperate used-car salesman trying to make one last sale before the mortgage comes due. The man's in trouble. He's dug a hole for himself and wants protection. But he's dug a hole for the rest of us and it's time to hold him accountable.