That was an usually quick flip-flop for the Bush White House, even by Karl Rove standards. A week ago, the administration was completely opposed to an independent commission to investigate the outrageous intelligence failures that led to the war in Iraq. Today, however, Bush changed course and announced he would appoint an “independent, bipartisan commission” to look into the intelligence failures. It’s exactly like the creation of the 9/11 Commission — fight against it as long as possible, then agree to it when it’s too late to have an impact.
My mind reels when it considers the scope and seriousness of this fiasco. It has few, if any, historical rivals in terms of the colossal misjudgment and the enormity of the consequences of those mistakes. Thousands died, hundreds of billions have been spent, and the credibility of the United States has suffered tremendously around the world.
In some ways, the past week hasn’t told the public anything we didn’t already believe. The longer the search for Iraqi WMD continued without success, the more it became apparent that the administration’s casus belli was completely wrong. The past week has, however, brought official imprimatur to our worst suspicions, in light of David Kay’s assessment: “We were all wrong.”
Republicans have been incredibly efficient and effective in sticking to a single talking point that Bush and his allies are repeating incessantly: the mistake was made by the CIA, not the White House.
As a matter of politics, one might assume that a mistake this big — we fought (and are fighting) a war that was predicated on a mistake — would be devastating for a president, even if he tried to pin the blame elsewhere. Everything the administration told us about the Iraqi “threat” turned out to be false. Everything.
But the effectiveness of the GOP talking point is that it puts Bush in with the rest of us. To hear the hawks and administration allies tell it, Bush was a helpless “victim” of bad intelligence; he relied on accurate information from intelligence sources and they let him down. We (the public) were misled because Bush was misled.
Putting aside the questions this argument raises about Bush competency, the strategy behind the “buck stops with the CIA” approach frees the White House to finally agree to an independent commission. Why not, right? A costly and bloody mistake has occurred, and so long as no one is going to point any fingers at his White House, Bush can have people investigate why everyone else was wrong.
The commission, however, is a fraud. To call it a half-hearted effort to ascertain the truth would be too generous. It’s a political band aid; nothing more.
* Bush gets to hand-pick the commission’s members. The president insists the panel will be “independent” and “bipartisan,” but his track record belies the reliability of these assurances. The White House will no doubt choose people who will avoid holding Bush responsible for these enormous mistakes.
* Bush will mandate that the commission’s report be delayed until after the elections. If the White House cooperates with the commission at all, which would be improvement from its treatment of the 9/11 independent commission, the results will still not be known until after Election Day. Even if the panel’s report ultimately shows that the White House was complicit in the mistake, cooked the books, and ignored warnings, the public won’t know the truth until it’s too late to act on that knowledge.
* Bush still won’t admit he was wrong. Even today, in announcing the creation of the commission, Bush said the purpose was to “analyze where we stand, what we can do better as we fight this war against terror.” It’s as if Bush is simply incapable of acknowledging what is painfully obvious: everything he said about the Iraqi threat has been proven false.
The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank noted today that this an intentional part of a carefully crafted political strategy.
“Bush aides have learned through hard experience that admitting error only projects weakness and invites more abuse,” Milbank said. “Conversely, by postponing an acknowledgment — possibly beyond Election Day — the White House is generating a fog of uncertainty around Kay’s stark findings, and potentially softening a harsh public judgment.”
GOP politics at its best. Confuse, delay, obfuscate, and create uncertainty to avoid blame — just long enough to win an election.
I know this will never come to bear, but I feel a bit like some Republicans during the height of the Lewinsky scandal — just admit you made a mistake and we’ll all feel better. If Bush is the victim of others’ failures, fine; say so and the public can be surprisingly forgiving.
As Paul Krugman put it, “Where’s the apology?”
“[T]he point is that a grave mistake was made, and America’s credibility has been badly damaged — and nobody is being held accountable. But that’s standard operating procedure. As far as I can tell, nobody in the Bush administration has ever paid a price for being wrong. Instead, people are severely punished for telling inconvenient truths. And administration officials have consistently sought to freeze out, undermine or intimidate anyone who might try to check up on their performance…. What has gone wrong with our country that allows this president to get away with such things?”