More About Bush & The Secret “War Tape”
As I wrote about several days ago . . .
Slate Magazine offers a new twist — analysis of how we can use this smoking gun to better help elect a stable President next time.
By Fred Kaplan
September 28, 2007
The Spanish newspaper El País recently published the transcript of a February 22, 2003 conversation between President George W. Bush and then-Prime Minister José María Aznar — a few weeks before the invasion of Iraq — and it confirms some (though not all) of the most dreadful accounts and suspicions about Bush’s intentions and nature.
The crucial exchange, in this respect, comes toward the end of the conversation, when the two leaders are discussing the magnitude of changing Saddam Hussein’s regime by force.
AZNAR: The only thing that worries me about you is your optimism.
BUSH: I’m an optimist because I believe that I’m right. I’m a person at peace with myself. It was our turn to face a serious threat to peace.
Here, in three sentences, is the first lesson on how to assess the current crop of presidential candidates: Don’t pick anyone who utters, or seems capable of believing, those three sentences.
“I’m an optimist because I believe that I’m right.” There’s a delusional tautology to this sentence. (Bush is quoted as making similar remarks in Robert Draper’s book Dead Certain.) To the extent that sensible people are optimistic about something, it’s not because of a belief, much less a belief in their own wisdom; it’s because the facts at hand—or perhaps their experiences with similar situations—suggest that a positive outcome is likely. Bush had no experiences, on any level, with anything like war or Iraq. Nobody would give money to a stockbroker who says that he’s optimistic about his investments because he believes he’s right (not even that he generally is right, just that he believes he’s right). Nobody should vote for a would-be president who talks like this, either.
“I’m a person at peace with myself.” Taken by itself, this can be a reassuring sentiment. A leader should be comfortable with power, assured at making decisions. But combined with the first sentence, it’s the sort of thing that might be uttered by … well, by George W. Bush.
“It was our turn to face a serious threat to peace.” Beware the politician who sees his life as an appointment with destiny. Ditto a president who thinks it’s his “turn” to do anything, much less to go to war and save civilization. Elsewhere in the transcript, Bush talks of being “guided by a historic sense of responsibility,” of looking ahead “some years from now,” when “History judges us.” History walks on two feet, as Karl Marx wrote (in one of his least Marxist pronouncements). All that anyone, including a president, can do is make the best judgments and take the wisest actions, given the circumstances, resources, and options at hand. History can be a useful guide, but it’s neither a force nor a judge. (Or if it is, its rulings are hardly definitive. Debates still rage, after all these centuries, over the relative merits of Hamilton, Adams, and Jefferson.)
Another lesson that a president-wannabe, and those of us deciding which one to vote for, could take from this transcript: Never overestimate your own power.
Prime Minister Aznar—who, it is worth noting, favored going to war—keeps urging Bush to wait a little longer before invading, in order to assemble a broader coalition. “I agree,” he says after Bush tells him it’s time to put a stop to Saddam’s dithering, “but it would be good to be able to count on as many people as possible. Be a little bit patient.”
“My patience is over,” Bush replies. “I don’t even think about [waiting] beyond mid-March.” The other members of the U.N. Security Council, he says, “have to know” that friendship with the United States is at stake. If Chile doesn’t go along with a war resolution, the Free Trade Agreement is in trouble. If Angola falters, its leaders should forget about receiving funds from the Millennium Account. Vladimir Putin should know “that his attitude is jeopardizing” U.S.-Russian relations.
Bush didn’t realize—nor did most of his top advisers—that the United States, while still powerful, no longer had the leverage to play this kind of hardball. He was in no position to offer, or therefore to withhold, security guarantees. These countries could go, and have gone, elsewhere for trade deals. And as for Russia, skyrocketing oil prices and the resurgence of national industries allowed Putin to behave without much fear of Washington’s wrath.
An additional lesson that one could glean from these transcripts: Never let timetables for mobilization determine decisions about war.
At the beginning of the transcript, Bush says of Saddam, “We have to get him right now. … There are two weeks left. In two weeks, we’ll be militarily ready.” This seems to be at least one reason Bush doesn’t “even think about” postponing the invasion past mid-March. His attitude is: Unleash the dogs of war when they’re ready; and “in two weeks,” by mid-March, they’ll be ready.
Bush’s decisions weren’t entirely mechanical, of course. The evidence is strong that he had decided to go to war as far back as late May or early June of 2002, about nine months before his conversation with Aznar. But the timing of actually launching the invasion does appear to have been determined by when the invasion would be ready for launching.
This distinction isn’t academic, because the transcript has Bush telling Aznar the following:
The Egyptians are talking to Saddam Hussein. It seems that he’s indicated that he’s willing to go into exile if they let him take 1 billion dollars with him, and all the information that he wants about the weapons of mass destruction. Gadaffi has told Berlusconi that Saddam Hussein wants to go.
Aznar asks if there’s any possibility Saddam could be offered a deal to go into exile “with some guarantee.” Bush replies, “No guarantee. He’s a thief, a terrorist, a war criminal. Compared to Saddam, Milosevic would be a Mother Theresa [sic].”
Rumors were floating around at the time of a deal in which war would be averted if Saddam went into exile (where, by the way, he would be much more vulnerable to assassination). But this transcript reveals, for the first time, I think, that there actually were offers on the table and that Bush was well aware of them.
Such a deal was clearly unacceptable to someone of Bush’s optimism and self-righteousness (and blood-thrist). It would have been a huge risk even to a more levelheaded president. But would such a president have casually brushed it aside, given the alternative of a war that would spill much blood and treasure in the brightest of scenarios? (At one point, Bush tells Aznar that a war will cost the United States $50 billion. He turned out to be off by a factor of almost 20; but even at $50 billion, the alternative of an exile deal would have been worth at least considering.)
The transcripts also reveal the shortcomings of a trait that has long been detected by Bush-watchers: his inattention to detail and his failure to enforce high-policy decisions. In talking about the war plans, he tells Aznar, “We’re already looking at a post-Saddam Iraq, and I believe there’s a good basis for a better future. Iraq has a good bureaucracy and a civilian [sic] society that’s relatively strong.”
As Bush was soon to discover, there was no plan for a “post-Saddam Iraq” at all — except for one, laid down by Paul Bremer as Order No. 1 of the Coalition Provisional Authority, to demolish that “good bureaucracy” by firing every bureaucrat who was in the Baathist Party, even those who joined only because membership was required to get a job.
Bush wasn’t lying about his intention to retain the bureaucracy. As we now know, in early March, the National Security Council—in a meeting of principals, with Bush in charge—approved a postwar policy that drew the line on the issue: Baathists above a certain level, probably around 5 percent of officials, would be barred from government work; those below that level, most of the rank-and-file, would be allowed to stay. It is still not known who reversed the decision (probably Vice President Dick Cheney, perhaps Bush himself under his prodding), but reversed it was—and no one was punished for it.
Finally, the transcript puts Bush in a slightly redemptive light on one matter. It suggests—just as the much-misread Downing Street Memos also suggested—that he genuinely thought that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Several times, he says, “Saddam isn’t disarming” or words to that effect. Aznar agrees. “Saddam Hussein hasn’t cooperated, he hasn’t disarmed,” the Spanish leader says at one point. “We should make a summary of his failed obligations and send a more elaborate message.”
But the fact that Bush believed his distorted intelligence only highlights a deeper failing in his administration, in his character—and a sterner demand on the voters in the coming election. It’s not enough to pick someone who’s honest. The next president also has to be realistic, skeptical, curious, and experienced; he or she has to be decisive but also smart.
Fed Bailout Only Helps The Reckless Rich
Chartsky.com Has Been Ranting About This For Over A Month
At least it’s finally starting to trickle into the corporate media . . .
By Allan Sloan
Fortune’s Senior Editor-At-Large
September 28, 2007
(Fortune Magazine) — One of the core principles of the U.S. medical profession is the Hippocratic oath, the most famous part of which is “Do no harm.” It’s too bad that the governors of the Federal Reserve Board don’t have to take such a pledge when they assume office, because their recent interest rate cut has done a lot of harm to those of us who’ve managed our finances prudently.
Even though the Fed’s stated reason for cutting short-term interest rates by half a point was to help keep the economy from falling into recession, anyone who’s been paying attention knows that a major motivation - if not the major motivation - was to try to calm the turbulence that has been roiling the markets since August.
The players in the biggest trouble, of course, were the ones who’d taken the biggest fliers in junk mortgages, ultra-risky leveraged buyouts, and other financial esoterica that proved to be malignant.
The stock market, which had been begging for a bailout and hasn’t ever seen an interest rate cut that it didn’t like, responded to the Fed’s half-pointer by running prices up. Ben Bernanke, the Street decided, is just what the doctor ordered.
However, if you look at the financial markets’ overall reaction to the Fed move - not at just the stock market’s reaction - you realize that as a result of the cut, those of us who keep score in dollars and didn’t need to be bailed out are less wealthy than we were in terms of anything other than our home currency.
Why? Because the rate cut contributed heavily to the dollar’s recent sharp drop in the currency markets - parity with the Canadian dollar, for God’s sake! - and to the price spike in hard assets like gold, silver, copper, and oil. So our wealth, relative to these other things, has diminished.
And wait, there’s more. Even though the Fed has cut short-term rates, long-term rates, which it doesn’t control, have risen in reaction to the cut. So whatever economic benefits may flow from lower shortterm rates will be partly offset by the rise in long rates, which are at least as important to the economy as short rates.
Finally, consider this. Even though Bernanke’s cut may mean that some junk mortgages will reset at lower rates, the cost of large, high-quality fixed-rate mortgages, which are tied to long rates, will be higher than they’d otherwise be. (Yeah, penalize the people who are prudent - way to go!)
When I talk about prudent people being penalized, I don’t mean just the decline in their wealth in terms of anything other than the dollar. I’m also talking about the price paid by investors who wouldn’t play the subprime mortgage game and thus got lower returns than players who took bigger risks.
The folks who didn’t get carried away (and avoided huge losses) look smart today - but they looked prudish and foolish until the housing bubble finally popped.
Bush Further Angers Rest Of World On Environment
Reason #12 America Is Disliked Or Hated Around the World . . .
Other Countries Call Bush Speech A “Charade”
By Ewen MacAskill
Saturday, September 29, 2007
George Bush was castigated by European diplomats and found himself isolated yesterday after a special conference on climate change ended without any progress.
European ministers, diplomats and officials attending the Washington conference were scathing, particularly in private, over Mr Bush’s failure once again to commit to binding action on climate change.
Although the US and Britain have been at odds over the environment since the early days of the Bush administration, the gap has never been as wide as yesterday.
Britain and almost all other European countries, including Germany and France, want mandatory targets for reducing greenhouse emissions. Mr Bush, while talking yesterday about a “new approach” and “a historic undertaking”, remains totally opposed.
The conference, attended by more than 20 countries, including China, India, Britain, France and Germany, broke up with the US isolated, according to non-Americans attending. One of those present said even China and India, two of the biggest polluters, accepted that the voluntary approach proposed by the US was untenable and favoured binding measures, even though they disagreed with the Europeans over how this would be achieved.
A senior European diplomat attending the conference, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the meeting confirmed European suspicions that it had been intended by Mr Bush as a spoiler for a major UN conference on climate change in Bali in December.
“It was a total charade and has been exposed as a charade,” the diplomat said.” I have never heard a more humiliating speech by a major leader. He [Mr Bush] was trying to present himself as a leader while showing no sign of leadership. It was a total failure.”
Attorney General Nominee Would Recuse Himself On Guliani Issues
Once again, the public is being played with.
The true test on recusal is whether this guy’s impartiality (of which has has none) could be expected to be directly or indirectly affected by his past representation of Guiliani.
And, of course, since he will control all aspects of their “confidential” work, we will never know how many things were done “indirectly” to help Guiliani or sweep things under the rug or just plain stall until it was too late for public disclosure to matter any more.
Angry Supreme Court Justice With An Agenda
Most Justices have an agenda, but we’re supposed to pretend they will “impartially” decide cases and the charade of confirmation exists to see whether they can obviously lie or stone-wall well enough for the Senate to pretend they will be fair.
Now, Justice Clarence Thomas settles old scores (really dignified for a United States Supreme Court Justice, huh?) in an angry and vivid forthcoming memoir, scathingly condemning the media, the Democratic senators who opposed his nomination to the Supreme Court, and the “mob” of liberal elites and activist groups that he says desecrated his life.
Can we stop pretending he has been anything but angry and vindictive since he was installed years ago?