10-27-05, 8:00 am
Despite pledges to the contrary, the Bush administration has explicitly politicized the conduct of the Iraq war. Staged photo-ops with soldiers, repeated public relations campaigns to impress the American people with the progress of its war on Iraq, and exaggerated claims about the 'spread of democracy' in the Middle East resulting from its policies are key elements of the politics of Bush's war.
With rumors swirling that the Bush administration may withdraw 50,000 troops from Iraq next year in time for the November 2006 mid-term congressional elections to stem a tide of anti-Republican sentiment due to numerous corruption scandals, fallout over the Katrina disaster, and its failed economic and foreign policy agenda, another aspect of Iraq war politics has surfaced.
This past week, the Los Angeles Times added further disturbing evidence about how the Iraq war has served as grist for the Republican public relations mill. Times writer Paul Richter reports that State Department official Robin Raphel has accused the Bush administration of rushing to war in order to prepare for Bush's reelection campaign in 2004.
Raphel chastised the administration for failing to build a multilateral effort and not adequately understanding the situation in Iraq, instead hoping for a speedy victory to boost Bush’s 2004 election chances.
Raphel, the State Department's coordinator for Iraq assistance in 2003 and an experienced diplomat with nearly three decades of service said, as part of an oral history project for the United States Institute of Peace, that the US was not 'remotely ready' for the post-war situation and that the administration's efforts were like 'amateur hour.'
Raphel remarked that the administration's decision to go to war was ideologically based, politically motivated, and failed to take into account the historical circumstances and physical realities in the country. Raphel said, 'The ideology was what has come to be called neoconservatism and the whole belief that this would be an easy war, that we would be welcomed with open arms.' Ideology, she added, can't be countered well by reasoned analysis or rationale arguments.
Raphel also indicated that her views are widely shared among her colleagues.
Raphel's comments had been preceded by a chorus of former diplomats and military officials from both Republican and Democratic administrations in 2004. In an official statement published in June of 2004, dozens of former high-ranking officials described the Bush administration as having 'failed in the primary responsibilities of preserving national security and providing world leadership' by misleading the country into an attack on Iraq.
The statement described the administration as 'overbearing' and 'insensitive.' It accused the administration of squandering the US’s moral leadership to lead a global campaign against terror by saber rattling, self-righteousness, and disdain for international institutions. The administration, the statement read, was 'motivated more by ideology than by reasoned analysis.'
The diplomats and military officers also argued that US security has been weakened and that pressing international concerns like terrorism, disease, poverty, and more have been set back because of the decision by the Bush administration to go to war against Iraq.
A key right-wing figure who recently echoed the kind of sentiments voiced by Raphel is Brent Scowcroft, former national security adviser to Bush 41. Scowcroft told Jeffrey Goldberg in the current issue of the New Yorker (10/31/2005) that Bush 43's approach to Iraq may be too costly and that the Iraq war 'feeds terrorism.' Scowcroft blasted the neo-conservative approach to 'exporting democracy' and hinted at stark differences in his view between Bush 41 and Bush 43. Scowcroft also suggested 'you have to know when to stop using force.'
While one might hesitate at Scowcroft's apparent self-righteousness, given Bush 41's own record, it is worthy of note that a right-winger like Scowcroft sees major differences between the administration he was a part of and the current one. Perhaps his memory is going, but there are also some key similarities: the manipulation of intelligence to build support for war and the politicization of war as public relations.
Former aide to Colin Powell, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson also thundered against the administration's war policy at speech delivered to the New America Foundation last week. Wilkerson described top officials in the administration, such as Cheney and Rumsfeld, as part of a 'cabal' that made decisions secretly and that resulted in great harm to the American people.
Though Wilkerson supports continued occupation and war in Iraq, he doesn't believe anyone in the administration has made a case for doing that. Further secrecy and poor decisions have ratcheted up danger and the possibility of nuclear proliferation. The administration 'made decisions in secret, and now I think it is paying the consequences of having made those decisions in secret,' Wilkerson said. 'But far more telling to me is that America is paying the consequences of having made those decisions in secret.'
Wilkerson also aimed his criticism at Bush for failing to hear dissent and for not taking leadership responsibility for preventing the secrecy that pervades the US government.
Raphel's and Wilkerson's comments are significant because they reveal the cynical basis of the current administration's war drive. A common refrain on the right is that politicians should leave management of war to the military, aiming this criticism mainly at liberal politicians who insist on following the constitutional practice of civilian oversight of the military. Political motives make clear military objectives fuzzy and hinder their accomplishment, costing lives and resources.
Although one might point out that this policy of oversight of the military has never been practiced by the civilian leadership of the country (and rarely, if ever, by the military leadership itself), one also can say that the politicization of war and the use of war as a form of diplomacy is a longstanding feature of US imperialism.
In the view of the ruling class, one of the foremost functions of the state is to wield military power in the interest of multinational corporations. It must do so expending the lives of working-class youth, so it has to carefully package its motives for war in ethereal and idealistic terms, such as 'exporting democracy,' 'defending freedom' and the 'war on terror.' Thus a capitalist war is inherently politically charged and ideologically motivated.
However, the current administration's unilateral rush to war and its failure to assess adequately or accurately the postwar situation before launching its massive invasion, was most directly motivated on the domestic front by the upcoming 2004 presidential election campaign, the need to present Bush as a war president, and to give the public some sense that the administration was making progress on the war on terror.
For these cynical political motives, 2,000 US troops have been killed, 15,300 have been wounded, over 30,000 Iraqis have been killed, and as many as 125,000 have been wounded. Pentagon surveys also reveal that has many as 50,000 returning vets have experienced adverse mental or physical effects due to their experiences in Iraq. And Condoleezza Rice predicts a 10-year-long occupation of Iraq.
--Contact Clara West at pa-letters@politicalaffairs.net.
