New Facts About Iraq
Stay the course? Withdraw? The spiral of violence poses more vexing questions for a White House increasingly under siege
"Cotton candy." White House officials say the storms over the Iraq intelligence report and Woodward's book are overblown. Bush and senior administration officials have been saying for months that the Iraq conflict and the global war on terrorism will be tough, prolonged struggles, the officials point out. White House Press Secretary Tony Snow went still further, telling reporters that Woodward's book is filled with "cotton candy" that dissolves on contact. Bush advisers say most Americans have already made up their minds about the war-and insist that the recent developments won't make much of a difference.
Rutgers political scientist Ross Baker tends to agree. What roils waters in official Washington, he says, rarely causes a stir elsewhere: "So much of what is heard in Washington [on Iraq] is not being heard outside Washington. There's deep concern about Iraq. It borders on a kind of national depression. ... But nobody has a way out." Since Democrats haven't unified behind an alternative strategy to Bush's, Baker adds, there's nothing for voters to rally around, leaving millions of Americans sullen but not rebellious.
It's also true that the selected portions of the NIE released by the White House were not terribly revealing. They reflected public statements and private assessments of the terrorist threat by a variety of top intelligence officials over a long period. Many analysts, for example, have agreed that the Iraq war has become a breeding ground for terrorists, has made the jihadist movement worse, and has resulted in more terrorists today than there were when the war began-all conclusions of the NIE. But the NIE goes on to warn that "the underlying factors fueling the spread of the movement outweigh its vulnerabilities and are likely to do so for the duration of the [five-year] time frame of this estimate."
Vietnam-again. This isn't the first time a secret document has entered the political realm. In 1976, another NIE, reviewing the extent of Soviet power, was authorized by then Director of Central Intelligence George Herbert Walker Bush, the current president's father. The National Intelligence Estimate on Soviet Strategic Objectives was developed when Gerald Ford was in the White House and found that the CIA had grossly underestimated the power of the Soviet Union, says historian Zelizer, who is writing a book on the history of national security policy. In 1977, after Jimmy Carter took over, conservatives used the findings to fault Carter for failing to confront the Soviets. The findings also hardened the views of conservatives and enhanced the credibility of a cold warrior named Ronald Reagan.
The new Iraq report is also in the mold of the "Pentagon Papers," an internal government report that was leaked to the New York Times in 1971. That study found that the Vietnam War was not going well and contradicted the Nixon administration's repeated rosy assessments of the conflict. President Nixon, of course, refused to leave Vietnam until he could do so on his own terms, although he ended up leaving the South, which was then taken over by the Communist North. And, strangely enough, Woodward reveals that President Bush and Vice President Cheney often receive counsel from none other than Henry Kissinger, who was Nixon's secretary of state and whose advice today is to insist on victory. "Kissinger's fighting the Vietnam War again because in his view, the problem in Vietnam was we lost our will," Woodward says.
As for Bush, he is even more resolute in private than in public. "I will not withdraw," the president told key Republicans at a White House meeting, "even if Laura and Barney are the only ones supporting me." Laura, of course, is his wife. Barney is his dog.
With Kevin Whitelaw, Silla Brush and Anna Mulrine
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