March 29, 2004
New York: A cascade of embarrassing revelations and accusations are demolishing George W. Bush's slickly packaged, made-for-TV persona as a `war president' and scourge of Islamic terrorists.
Former president Jimmy Carter accused Bush and Britain's Tony Blair of waging a `war of lies' against Iraq.
Poland's president said he was `deceived' by Bush into sending troops to Iraq. Spain's new prime minister denounced Bush's Iraq adventure as a `fiasco' and a `war based on lies.'
A group of leading American business executives ran a full-page ad in the `New York Times' entitled `Have you noticed what's happened to chief executives who lie?' with a picture of an executive being led away in handcuffs. The ad described the Iraq invasion as a `state-sponsored deception (that) already dwarfs the damage done by the worst corporate scandals,' citing 566 American dead and a cost of US$125 billion (not to mention 20,000 Iraqi deaths).
The underlying message was stark: the president and his `war
Cabinet ought to face criminal charges for lying to the nation and starting an unnecessary war for domestic political reasons.
The fourth bombshell exploded when Richard Clarke, the respected former counter-terrorism chief under presidents Clinton and Bush , went public with the most damning accusations yet made against the Bush White House. His testimony before a commission investigating the 11 Sept attacks on the US asserted:
The Bush Administration damaged US national security, did not do enough to prevent the 9/11 attacks, and obsessed over Iraq while largely ignoring al-Qaida's threat.
Bush, said Clarke, did `a terrible job' in fighting terrorism. Bush's obsession with Iraq left the US `needlessly unprepared' to counter an al-Qaida attack. He also criticized, somewhat less strongly, the Clinton Administration's anti-terrorism efforts.
Clarke, a Republican, insisted there were no links between Iraq and either 9/11 or terrorism, and that Iraq had no concealed weapons, a position long maintained by this column. But the feeble, politicized 9/11 commission failed to follow up on this dramatic testimony.
Vice President Dick Cheney was described by Clarke as a `right-wing ideologue.' Clarke accused Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, a principal architect of the Iraq War, of `belittling' the al-Qaida threat, the unspoken assumption being that Wolfowitz was more eager to destroy an enemy of Israel than go after al-Qaida.
We learned Defense Secretary Rumsfeld was so preoccupied with anti-missile defense before 9/11 that he ignored al-Qaida.
The commission's report stated Rumsfeld `did not recall any particular counter-terrorism issue that engaged his attention before 9/11,' though CIA claimed to have urgently warned Bush and Rumsfeld almost daily of impending attacks.
National Security advisor Condoleeza Rice, who refused to testify, was shown to be a dithering, confused amateur, and a viperous character assassin. She has led the White House's vicious attacks on Clarke.
Attorney General John Ashcroft, another self-styled scourge of terrorists, actually proposed cutting spending on counter-terrorism exactly one day before 9/11 — and then, again, afterwards. Unfortunately, the limp-wristed commission failed to ask why the Bush Administration had been sending millions in aid to the `terrorist' Taliban until four months before 9/11.
This column has repeatedly asserted the Bush Administration was asleep on guard duty on 9/11. True, there was no warnings hijacked airliners were coming on that specific day. But with the benefit of hindsight, we see the same ineptitude and confusion that preceded the attack on Pearl Harbor: a combination of distraction, smugness, self-deception, disbelief and bungling. Japan's naval codes were being intercepted and deciphered; her attacking aircraft were spotted by radar. Yet the obvious conclusions were somehow not made. The same applies to 9/11.
In the US Navy, a ship's captain is responsible for all accidents or misfortunes, no matter what the excuse. But no senior member of the Bush Administration has accepted responsibility for the death of some 3,000 people on 9/11. No one resigned.
No senior US official acted with the honor and courage of Britain's Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, who resigned to protest a war against Iraq he charged was based entirely on falsehoods and disinformation.
Instead, the Bush Administration launched a trumped-up war against Iraq to mask its own negligence prior to 9/11, and satisfy America's lust for revenge by attacking a nation innocent of that crime.
Clarke at least had the decency to apologize to the families of the 9/11 victims, saying `the government failed you. And I failed you.' We have yet to hear a peep of self-criticism from the blundering but arrogant Bush White House.
Of course not. This administration is running for re-election on its `war record' against Iraq, and its so-called war on terrorism. Bush is playing Franklin Roosevelt or Harry Truman.
But Bush's claim to be a war president is like the man who murders his family, then begs for mercy because he is an orphan. The Iraq war was not one of self-defense, like WWII, but an unprovoked, illegal aggression engineered by the Bush Administration and justified by a torrent of shameful lies. Bush's `war on terrorism' is a police action that was unnecessarily and foolishly militarized.
Richard Clarke, no matter his motives, has done his nation an important, badly-needed service.
Foreign Correspondent
