Plan of Attack, Part 9
David Kay, the supervisor of the
Iraq Survey Group, reported on October 2, 2003, that Iraq had violated the UN resolutions in many ways not realized before the invasion. "Remarkable progress" had occurred, but the destruction of Iraqi data had hindered the effort, and "we have not yet found stocks of weapons." Bush told Bob Woodward that Kay's report was sufficient to establish material breach of UN Resolution 1441, which in turn justified the invasion, even though no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction have been found. In his view, the violation of any part of UN Resolution 1441, not merely the presence of WMD, was sufficient cause for war.
Colin Powell thought Bush and the rest of the Administration were, in Woodward's words, "dangerously protective" of the decisions they had made about Iraq. There was no re-analysis in light of new information, and no one on the inside, since the departure of Karen Hughes, whom Bush trusted enough to be able to force the issue. Bush had never been one to second-guess his decisions or to feel doubt, and without anyone who could force a realistic reassessment, it was clear that Bush would be not be going back to fundamentals and questioning his original judgment. Bush himself confirmed this in his interviews with Bob Woodward. Woodward quoted Tony Blair to him, "And don't believe anyone who tells you when they receive letters like that [from parents of sons killed in the war] they don't suffer any doubt." "Yeah," replied Bush, "I haven't suffered doubt."
Bush agreed to give Woodward an in-depth interview in order to tell the story of how the war was planned. The Pentagon took great pains to design a war plan that carefully targeted Saddam and the Baathist leadership and largely avoided casualties among average Iraqis. The war plan itself was a great success in this regard. Bush said, "To me the big news is America has changed how you fight and win war, and therefore makes it easier to keep the peace in the long run. And that's the historical significance of this book as far as I'm concerned."
After David Kay's testimony on January 28, 2004, both parties began to demand an independent investigation of what had gone wrong with the intelligence on Iraq and WMD. Bush originally resisted, but then he and his administration came to understand the necessity. So, in order to retain some control over the situation, he reached out and shaped the process by proposing an independent bipartisan commission themselves. It was assigned to look at all intelligence problems, not just in Iraq, and it was not to report until March 31, 2005, well after the presidential election.
George Tenet was put on the defensive by Kay's testimony. He had maintained, since the initial invasion, that Iraq did have WMD somewhere, although it was possible that it would never be found because of the looting and document destruction inside Iraq. But Kay's testimony, with its statement that "we were all wrong," meant that the CIA, too, had been wrong. In late 2001, Tenet had complained about wrong judgments in the media, and how "there's never any price" when the media is wrong, but that if the CIA director had given out bad information the president ought to "fire your ass." So Tenet had to at least attempt to refute Kay's claims. On February 5, 2004, he gave a speech at Georgetown University, his alma mater, saying the CIA needed "more time... and more data," and listed some of the recent successes of the CIA, including the capture of
Khalid Sheik Mohammed and the discovery of the nuclear proliferation network run by
Abdul Qadeer Khan. He said, in particular, "We cannot afford an environment to develop where analysts are afraid to make a call, where judgments are held back because analysts fear they will be wrong." After 9/11, the CIA had decided to issue stronger judgments and more stern warnings. But being wrong about an attack on the US and being wrong about the justification for war in Iraq are different things. Tenet eventually admitted to associates that the October 2002 NIE and other intelligence should have stated up front that there was no smoking gun about Saddam's WMD.
Bush remains convinced that he made the right decision to go to war in Iraq. He has, by his own admission, never felt a moment of doubt. He told Woodward, "[I told Rice], 'I am prepared to risk my presidency to do what I think is right.' I was going to act. And if it could cost the presidency, I fully realized that. But I felt so strongly that it was the right thing to do that I was prepared to do so." Woodward asked, "And if this decision costs you the election?" Bush replied, "The presidency -- that's just the way it is. Fully prepared to live with it."
That's it! That's all the text, summarized in convenient nine-part format. My thoughts on the book and on the war are
here.
