Woodward Asked Bush about WMDs in Late 2003

We're hearing more that Bush really believes what he's saying when it comes to Iraq and the Middle East. That doesn't make Bush any less of a fool. Given how little he knows about the world, particularly when he became president, it's arrogant for him to rely so heavily on his own 'gut instincts.' And then there's the problem that Bush is not just conservative but essentially reactionary; the reality is that right wingers have not understood the world very well in the last hundred years and they have great difficulty being honest with themselves and others.

Here's an excerpt from Bob Woodward's State of Denial:

On December 11,2003, I had interviewed President Bush and got a taste of his style and habit of denial. It was eight months after the invasion and WMD had not been found.

"On weapons of mass destruction," I asked.

"Sure," the president said.

One of my bosses at The Washington Post had suggested I ask, "Was the president misled—"

"No," Bush said.

I continued the question, "—by the intelligence, or did he mislead the country?"

"No."

"No, okay," I repeated his reply.

"The answer is absolutely not."

"What happened?" I asked.

"What do you mean what happened?" Bush asked, sounding as if he had not been the one who gave all those speeches about WMD.

"In terms of weapons of mass destruction," I explained. "And the 'slam dunk' case."

The president said that weapons inspector David Kay's initial report supported the idea that Saddam had weapons programs. "I think that it's way too early to fully understand the complete history. This is intelligence," he pointed out.

I understand," I said. "Not fact."

"It was intelligence, hard-enough intelligence for the United Nations to pass several resolutions. Hard-enough intelligence for President Bill Clinton to make a military decision on this" by ordering the bombing of Iraq's suspected WMD sites in 1998.

"But we have not found any weapons of mass destruction," I said.

"We have found weapons programs that could be reconstituted."

"Could be, I agree."

"A weapon could come very quickly. And so therefore, given that, even if that's the very minimum you had, how could you not act on Saddam Hussein, given his nature," Bush said.

I mentioned that I'd spoken with Americans as I traveled around the country who thought that after 9/11 he had been the voice of realism by saying it had been a catastrophic attack, that the terrorists were killers, and that America was in for a long battle. His unwillingness to acknowledge that no WMD had been found was making him less the voice of realism.

"I disagree with that, that construct," Bush replied.

"Fair."

"Saddam Hussein had weapons, he used weapons."

"No question."

"And he hid weapons. He hid systems. He had plans," Bush went on. "And so therefore—the voice of realism just lays out where we are. That's a realistic look."

"And include in there, We haven't found them yet," I said.

He chuckled. "From my perspective, I don't want people to say, 'Aha, we told you so.' I want people to know that there is a process that's ongoing in a very dangerous part of the world. And so, frankly, I haven't heard one person say that to me, but you run in different circles than I do. Much more elite."

I said the people I was talking about were business people.

"The realism is to be able to understand the nature of Saddam Hussein, his history, his potential to harm America."

"Clearly, we haven't found bubbling vats," I said.

"Well," the president chuckled.

"But the status report, for the last six or seven months, is we havaen't found weapons. That's all," I pushed one more time.

"True, true, true."

It had taken five minutes and 18 seconds for Bush simply to acknowledge the fact that we hadn't found weapons of mass destruction. [pages 488-489]

The voice of realism? ....No comment.

I'm not going to rehash everything I've said for the last four years. Nor am I'm going to quibble over some of Woodward's assumptions that give Bush more wriggle room than he deserves. Suffice to say that the dialogue is damning and shows a president in denial and squirming every which way to avoid confronting his failure. In the end, the intelligence the Bush Administration used was mush and probably had little to do in any case with the administration's many conflicted motivations. And Bush's ideological theory for the war, as near as we can understand it, was based on the contradictory gibberish of military domination, imposing democracy by military force while gaining some economic advantages for the United States. It was a pathetic excuse for a war in Iraq. It was an enormous strategic failure in concept and execution.

I know Republicans, and particularly right-wing Republicans, well enough to know they probably see the above dialogue somewhat differently than I do and most of them probably still give Bush the benefit of the doubt but I also know a few hard-nosed Republican realists who would shake their heads knowing perfectly well that Bush should never have become president. We went to war based on self-deceptions supported by conscious lies with a plan based on abysmal ignorance and hubris. Americans need to think long and hard about who the next president is going to be. If we elect another public relations illusion, our country will continue to stumble.

Cheney: The Man Behind the Curtain

Cheney's recent high profile adventures and comments do not appear to be working in his favor. The media is beginning to nail Cheney for some of his nonsense. Remember all the bizarre stories we've heard over the last six years that are by anonymous sources high in the administration? Editor & Publisher has an AP story on one possible source:

So who are those "senior administration officials" you hear quoted in the media?

Sometimes they're VERY senior administration officials.

Take the person who briefed reporters aboard Vice President Cheney's plane after his secret stay in Afghanistan. He didn't want his name used when he talked to reporters, but he kept using the words "I" and "me" as he referred to Cheney and to the reason for the vice president's visit.

It makes it hard to quote Cheney if reporters have to recast quotes in fictional form (I know, I know, there are accepted conventions for this sort of thing, but when anonymous sources are abusing the process to float politically convenient fictions or to out CIA operatives to exact revenge, journalists and editors need to acknowledge they're being used).

Editor & Publisher also has an item on Bob Woodward and his thoughts on journalism:

Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward said Wednesday that journalists in the U.S. should have been more aggressive in their reporting during the buildup to the Iraq War, according to the Agence France Presse wire service.

Speaking at a conference in Tokyo, the journalist who broke the Watergate scandal reportedly said that the media should have done more to verify claims that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

Woodward means well and certainly has caught up to events to some extent but he goes on to say that reporting on the ground was probably necessary (in Iraq) and that the story might have taken years to properly investigate. Actually, there were red flags stretching all the way from June 2002 to the invasion in March 2003. There were reporters, particularly of the Knight Ridder Washington Bureau (now McClatchy), who were doing stories that seriously challenged administration claims, but many big-name reporters (Woodward included) didn't follow up on those developments. And of course, it would have been useful at the time to know which high level administration figures were doing such heavy-handed spinning and whether indeed there was any reality to their claims. But at this late date, we do know one thing for certain: Cheney's calculated habits of political expediency have done enormous damage to our democracy, our national security and our nation.

Ford Was Critical of Bush's Iraq Policy

According to Bob Woodward, Gerald Ford was critical of Bush's Iraq policy. Unfortunately, Ford chose not to make his objections public at a time when they might have been useful. Here's Woodward's article in The Washington Post along with other details:

In a four-hour conversation at his house in Beaver Creek, Colo., Ford "very strongly" disagreed with the current president's justifications for invading Iraq and said he would have pushed alternatives, such as sanctions, much more vigorously. In the tape-recorded interview, Ford was critical not only of Bush but also of Vice President Cheney -- Ford's White House chief of staff -- and then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who served as Ford's chief of staff and then his Pentagon chief.

(snip)

"He was an excellent chief of staff. First class," Ford said. "But I think Cheney has become much more pugnacious" as vice president. He said he agreed with former secretary of state Colin L. Powell's assertion that Cheney developed a "fever" about the threat of terrorism and Iraq. "I think that's probably true."

(snip)

[Speaking of his own presidency...] Most challenging of all, as Ford recalled, was Henry A. Kissinger, who was both secretary of state and national security adviser and had what Ford said was "the thinnest skin of any public figure I ever knew."

"I think he was a super secretary of state," Ford said, "but Henry in his mind never made a mistake, so whatever policies there were that he implemented, in retrospect he would defend."

I had to add that last paragraph. Kissinger's support of Bush has been a puzzle, though the former secretary of state has recently backed away somewhat; but they both have in common an inability to admit mistakes. Must be a mutual admiration society I suppose.

The one recent occassion that the increasingly frail Ford was seen with Bush, he didn't say much but he allowed the impression to be given that he supported Bush's policies. I notice that Woodward says he has recordings of his interview with Ford. Sometimes, Woodward may not be the most alert journalist to the problems in Washington but he does remind us that he can get the story like no one else can, eventually.

It's been a tradition among former presidents not to comment on a current president but Bush's extraordinary policy blunders have presented an unusual situation. Ford was probably honoring the tradition though others have been speaking up. Woodward's interviews with Ford may help enhance Ford's reputation and clear up some historical questions.

But here's an important point: if what Woodward says is accurate, then Ford joined Presidents Carter, Bush senior and Bill Clinton in being critical of Bush's Iraq policy. Four presidents. And no disssenters. We have a problem.