In the run-up to the November midterm elections, the Bush administration has been accelerating its rhetoric in defense of the war in Iraq. Monday’s fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks served to remind us of the mistaken rationale for the 2003 invasion.
In the center of the maelstrom is Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Two weeks ago, he angered critics of the war with a blast against the majority of Americans who oppose administration policy in Iraq. “Some seem not to have learned history’s lessons,” he said, harkening to those who sought to appease Hitler’s Germany before World War II. You’d better fall into line, Rumsfeld suggested, declaring that those who criticize the administration suffer from “moral and intellectual confusion.”
Such rhetoric is outlandish and uncalled for, even in an election year, even given the rising stress of his job.
Sen. Ken Salazar was so incensed by Rumsfeld’s remarks that he sent a letter to the president asking that Rumsfeld be dismissed. “It is a grave insult to suggest that Americans who question Secretary Rumsfeld’s mismanagement of the conflict in Iraq are somehow not fully committed to standing up to terrorism,” Salazar said. He noted that Rumsfeld had not only hugely misjudged the cost of the war but its duration.
In 2003, Rumsfeld said he doubted the war would last longer than six months. (This comes from the same man who ignored crucial intelligence assessments that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and muzzled State Department experts who emphasized the need for planning to secure the victory that so quickly evaporated). That was 3½ years ago, and the war rages on with the toll of American military killed nearing 3,000 and thousands more injured. Many thousands more Iraqis have been killed. We’re at the point where Rumsfeld’s lectures are neither welcome nor credible.
Vice President Dick Cheney’s self-serving comments on Sunday served to underscore the administration’s obvious miscalculations. Appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” he said the United States has no regrets about invading Iraq and that the administration would have done “exactly the same thing” even if it knew that there were no weapons of mass destruction. (The Senate Intelligence Committee reported last Friday there was no basis for the administration’s repeated claims that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had harbored an al-Qaeda leader and had ties to the group.)
What is worrisome about the administration’s pre-election rhetoric is that it will be used to stay the dangerous course in Iraq at a time when President Bush needs a fresh perspective to bring the conflict to a successful conclusion. During the Vietnam War, President Johnson reached out and got a new viewpoint by bringing in Clark Clifford to replace Defense Secretary Robert McNamara.
U.S. forces in Iraq must battle insurgents while attempting to check sectarian violence and its effects. The last thing they need is to battle Rumsfeld’s disdainful rhetoric and Cheney’s complacency.
