Posted on 6-3-2003
A
War Policy In Collapse
By James Carroll, Boston Globe, Tuesday 4 March 2003
WHAT A DIFFERENCE a month makes. On Feb. 5, Secretary of State
Colin Powell
made the Bush administration's case against Iraq with a show
of authority
that moved many officials and pundits out of ambivalence and
into
acceptance. The war came to seem inevitable, which then prompted
millions
of people to express their opposition in streets around the
globe. Over
subsequent weeks, the debate between hawks and doves took on
the strident
character of ideologues beating each other with fixed positions.
The
sputtering rage of war opponents and the grandiose abstractions
of war
advocates both seemed disconnected from the relentless marshaling
of
troops. War was coming. Further argument was fruitless. The
time seemed to
have arrived, finally, for a columnist to change the subject.
And then the events of last week. Within a period of a few days,
the war
policy of the Bush administration suddenly showed signs of incipient
collapse. No one of these developments by itself marks the ultimate
reversal of fortune for Bush, but taken together, they indicate
that the
law of ''unintended consequences,'' which famously unravels
the best-laid
plans of warriors, may apply this time before the war formally
begins.
Unraveling is underway. Consider what happened as February rolled
into March:
Tony Blair forcefully criticized George W. Bush for his obstinacy
on global
environmental issues, a truly odd piece of timing for such criticism
from a
key ally yet a clear effort to get some distance from Washington.
Why now?
The president's father chose to give a speech affirming the
importance both
of multinational cooperation and of realism in dealing with
the likes of
Saddam Hussein. To say, as the elder Bush did, that getting
rid of Hussein
in 1991 was not the most important thing is to raise the question
of why it
has become the absolute now.
For the first time since the crisis began, Iraq actually began
to disarm,
destroying Al Samoud 2 missiles and apparently preparing to
bring weapons
inspectors into the secret world of anthrax and nerve agents.
The Bush
administration could have claimed this as a victory on which
to mount
further pressure toward disarmament.
Instead, the confirmed destruction of Iraqi arms prompted Washington
to
couple its call for disarmament with the old, diplomatically
discredited
demand for regime change. Even an Iraq purged of weapons of
mass
destruction would not be enough to avoid war. Predictably, Iraq
then asked,
in effect, why Hussein should take steps to disarm if his government
is
doomed in any case? Bush's inconsistency on this point -- disarmament
or
regime change? -- undermined the early case for war. That it
reappears now,
obliterating Powell's argument of a month ago, is fatal to the
moral
integrity of the prowar position.
The Russian foreign minister declared his nation's readiness
to use its
veto in the Security Council to thwart American hopes for a
UN ratification
of an invasion.
Despite Washington's offer of many billions in aid, the Turkish
Parliament
refused to approve US requests to mount offensive operations
from bases in
Turkey -- the single largest blow against US war plans yet.
This failure of
Bush diplomacy, eliminating a second front, might be paid for
in American
lives.
The capture in Pakistan of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a senior
Al Qaeda
operative, should have been only good news to the Bush administration,
but
it highlighted the difference between the pursuit of Sept. 11
culprits and
the unrelated war against Iraq. Osama bin Laden, yes. Saddam
Hussein, no.
Administration officials, contradicting military projections
and then
refusing in testimony before Congress to estimate costs and
postwar troop
levels, put on display either the administration's inadequate
preparation
or its determination, through secrecy, to thwart democratic
procedures --
choose one.
In other developments, all highlighting Washington's panicky
ineptness, the
Philippines rejected the help of arriving US combat forces,
North Korea
apparently prepared to start up plutonium production, and Rumsfeld
ordered
the actual deployment of missile defense units in California
and Alaska,
making the absurd (and as of now illegal) claim that further
tests are
unnecessary.
All of this points to an administration whose policies are confused
and
whose implementations are incompetent. The efficiency with which
the US
military is moving into position for attack is impressive; thousands
of
uniformed Americans are preparing to carry out the orders of
their civilian
superiors with diligence and courage. But the hollowness of
that civilian
leadership, laid bare in the disarray of last week's news, is
breathtaking.
That the United States of America should be on the brink of
such an
ill-conceived, unnecessary war is itself a crime. The hope now
is that --
even before the war has officially begun -- its true character
is already
manifesting itself, which could be enough, at last, to stop
it
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