President Bush this week urged Americans to have patience regarding the war in Iraq. In doing so, he revealed three flaws that have been consistent throughout his administration – the inability to realistically evaluate current situations, the absolute refusal to plan for the future, and the tendency to equate simple-minded stubbornness with thoughtful resolve.
If Bush had thought carefully about the implications of launching a war against Iraq, it might be easier to accept his plea for patience as American soldiers continue to die. But all the evidence suggests he rushed into war, had unrealistic expectations about how it would be executed, gave no thought to what would happen the day after the Iraqi government fell, and now has no idea where the war is headed or when it will end.
The Bush administration honestly believed that Iraqis would greet American soldiers with flowers and cheers, and that the fighting wouldn’t last long. The president declared the end of major combat operations in May 2003, just 43 days after the war started.
He thought the insurgency would die down after Saddam Hussein was captured in December 2003. And he thought the war was over when Iraqis voted in a national election earlier this year. Even today, the Bush administration continues to insist that the war is going well and the insurgency is in its “last throes,” despite reports of exactly the opposite from American military commanders.
On Tuesday, President Bush said that terrorists want to “remake the Middle East … by toppling governments.”
The irony is that they don’t have to. The United States toppled the Iraqi government and turned the country into a lawless feeding ground for terrorists.
I’ve written several columns criticizing the handling of the war in Iraq, and I’ve received many e-mails from active-duty soldiers thanking me for raising questions about Iraq.
A few days ago, a soldier named Chris wrote:
“I have been in the military for 9 yrs and can’t believe the mess we are in nor understand why there hasn’t been more spoken about it. We have created a new terror training ground in Iraq, where the terrorists can prove their mettle and inflict damage in their ideological war against the U.S. Further, we have made it even easier by putting ourselves in harm’s way. The terrorists no longer have to sneak into the U.S. … One has only to listen to those in charge to understand there will be no withdrawal anytime soon unless the public presses for it.”
Yet despite diminishing public support for the war, Bush says he won’t commit to a timetable because “setting an artificial timetable would send the wrong message to Iraqis … our troops … and insurgents.”
That’s certainly a logical argument, but when viewed against the backdrop of previous miscalculations and failure to plan, it’s more likely that the Bush administration simply isn’t willing to debate whether the current list of 15,000 American casualties is going to expand to 30,000 or even 100,000.
They’re not willing to anticipate whether the current $230 billion bill will grow to $500 billion or $1 trillion. They just want to keep spending lives and money, and they expect us to simply sit back patiently and trust them to do the right thing.
It’s tempting to blame Bush for poor leadership, but we have to remember that the majority of American voters gave him a stamp of approval last year. He’s only doing what he thinks we want him to do.
As Chris pointed out, the president will only withdraw the troops if the public forces him to do so. So it’s incumbent upon us to make sure he knows our feelings have changed. We want him to judge the current situation in Iraq realistically and develop plans for the future.
Former Bronco Reggie Rivers is the host of Drawing the Line Wednesday’s at 8 p.m. on KBDI Channel 12. He writes Fridays on the op-ed page.
