In Case You're Interested

In Team Bush's take on the past twelve months in Iraq, David Sanger, Michael Gordon, and John Burns have teamed up to offer a fairly comprehensive account based on interviews with a wide variety of key players. You can try and dress this up various different ways, but it comes down to Bush's advisers being consistently something like two or more years behind the reality curve in Iraq. So when the administration outlined its November 2005 National Strategy for Victory in Iraq lots of critics could be heard pointing out that it completely ignored the new civil war dynamic in Iraq. Now, 13 months later, the architects of that strategy are telling us they failed to anticipate the way sectarian violence would tear Iraq apart.

And, yes, they did fail to anticipate it. But the situation was, in fact, widely anticipated by any number of observers around the world. On another level, it's hard to blame Bush's advisors for not coming to him with sounder takes on what's happening. Everyone knows what kind of news and analysis is unwelcome in this administration, and everyone knows what happens to people who bring unwelcome news. So everyone sits around and gets "surprised" by the obvious and predictable.

Comments

I'm a parent. My son is working on a doctorate. He's my only child. Everything I've done for 23 years has been geared to getting him to this point in his life. He's not fighting in Iraq. If he was in Iraq and killed in that war I'm not sure what I'd do while suffering what I'm sure what would be grief and depression beyond description. If he was killed fighting what we all know now is an unwinnable, worthless exercise in idiocy my anger would know no bounds. Despite many parents being supportive of the military and their children's choice to serve there must be many more angry beyond words at what Bush has done to their families, their lives. The Secret Service must be especially jumpy when Bush travels. Were it my son that died over there their nervousness would be for very good reason.

Posted by steve duncan | January 2, 2007 9:46 AM

Steve, Steve,

Aside from the risk of making yourself a target for some unwelcome attention, the above implication suffers from another serious flaw. You don't want to replace an idiot with a monster. If Bush was succeeded by Cheney, the bombs would be dropping on Tehran the next day.

Posted by A Patriot | January 2, 2007 9:53 AM

One monster at a time.

Posted by steve duncan | January 2, 2007 10:01 AM

Ooooh boy. A couple of Bush quotes from the article:

in "November" (presumably post-election):
"..[victory] is a word the American people understand. And if I start to change it, it will look like I'm beginning to change my policy."

"a few weeks ago" (to the commanding generals):
"What I want to hear from you is how we're going to win, not how we're going to leave."

Posted by MattF | January 2, 2007 10:12 AM

I think there has to be a broad drive toward some kind of constitutional settlement that would remove Bush and Cheney from power.

If they could somehow be made to cooperate, maybe by threat of impeachment, Bush could fire Cheney, who would be replaced by someone else, anyone else, and then Bush could resign.

If they won't cooperate, they could be removed and replaced by amendment of the Constitution.

Posted by grytpype | January 2, 2007 10:16 AM

Wait a minute. You're going way too easy on Bush's advisors (unless you just meant it tongue in cheek). An advisor should give the best advice he or she can, and live with the consequences. We shouldn't let what has happened in the last 6 years make us stop demanding integrity in public officials.

Posted by Jim W | January 2, 2007 10:46 AM

Unfortunately, Jim, another subtext of the same article is that advisors who don't tell Bush what he wants to here tend to have their careers cut short. Generals Abizaid and Casey said that a force buildup along the lines contemplated by Bush is pointless; Abizaid's retiring early, and Casey is taking an early exit from his current posting in Baghdad.

Posted by "Charles Dodgson" | January 2, 2007 10:56 AM

Has anyone seen loosechange911? Go to www.loosechange911.com and watch. What do you think?

Matthew, I was wondering what you thought about it?

Mark Gaughan

Posted by Mark Gaughan | January 2, 2007 11:32 AM

Mark-

Loose Change is regarded as tendentious and embarrassing even by 9/11 conspiracy theorists. Here, for instance, is a line-by-line analysis refuting about 3/4 of it. And this is by people who are convinced that the WTC towers were brought down in a secret controlled demolition.

Posted by Dave H | January 2, 2007 7:14 PM