First, a quick response. Bush didn’t back Blair, and that has led to talk of an early UK withdrawal, and two months later, talk of an US withdrawal next year. Remember, during the G8 summit, Blair wanted to shift the focus solidly towards debt relief for Africa and environmental issues. He believed that his support for the US would persuade Bush to support initiatives which kind of went against US policy (especially the environmental stuff). When the White House made the announcement that they would not buy into the agenda, that same day the newspapers reported a UK commander in Iraq talking about withdrawal. The interesting question is why doesn’t Bush play by the diplomatic game? I tend to think it’s because he’s driven by a particular vision that sees participation in Iraq not as assistance, but as a necessity.
Anyway, the Democrats are posturing to an extent. Bush is weak, and this action forces the political agenda, and the political momentum, on a principle source of that weakness. However, I am nevertheless glad that some action is being taken on this front. Part of cleaning up politics is acknowledging mistakes and preventing them from happening again. In this instance, while I don’t think Bush felt his was deceiving the US public, his famous trust for close advisors certainly blinded him to the genuine picture of US intelligence on Iraq. That, to my mind, is equally as disastrous a situation as deliberate misrepresentation, and indeed, here it has the exact same effect. In the absence of a truly independent investigation into this (and the Bush administration has never trusted independent investigations - see the Plame case), the Democrats have a pretty strong justification for taking this route, regardless of political motivation. I don’t believe that the political aspect negates the need for reform in this instance.
Also, I tend to think this IS the best step that Democrats, or better, anti-war leaders, could take. A genuine disengagement from Iraq will require international support, and that won’t occur until a thorough house cleaning is put into effect. Also, it’ll likely involve firing some top officials, like Rumsfeld. Even the Economist, which was a famously pro-war British publication, wants Rumsfeld gone in the wake of Abu Ghraib and the opportunity presented to Bush at this juncture to clean up. To do that, there needs to be a comprehensive investigation of the process leading up to war, and the many failures along the way. Whether this is a first step, or just a one-off showcase, remains to be seen, but in any event, I think on balance this will help the war effort. After all, insurgents aren’t invigorated, and they don’t recruit from, those individuals who watch US news programs and think that the protests in the US display a sign of military weakness. Instead, they recruit from those individuals who decry the hypocrisy of US actions, and reform, no, democratic reform, is vital in defusing that source of criticism and recruitment.
Darth - I find problems with a number of the claims you’re making. First off, you made a comment that attacking the execution of the Iraq war makes it seem like one is defending Saddam, and that’s not a side to be on. While I think you’re point does show a problem with how the political debate is going, I don’t think it’s right to fault a critique of the Iraq war for how other people - notably pro-war individuals - perceive him. That implies a problem on the part of the pro-war individuals, in that they cannot treat the critic’s arguments fairly.
Secondly, I don’t necessarily think your depiction of how a deliberate deception would run is all that illuminating. However, I, like you, don’t think that Bush was deliberately misleading people. It’s another problem, but still, I think we agree there. To state it quickly, some of the things you propose the US could do just wouldn’t be believed, and others, well, the US probably doesn’t have the capability to do it. For example, the UN inspection program had lots of evidence about the Iraq NBC weapons programs and their delivery systems. Could the US manufacture a Scud missile that UNSCOM didn’t have records of? It’s unlikely, given both the manufacturing capability (you’d have to have a plant that actually could build one), the possibility of leaks (any sort of operation along that lines would involve a lot of people, one of whom would raise doubts), and runs up against international norms (like, say, the deliberate misuse of nuclear material, which is monitored by the IAEA).
Finally, don’t forget that this was fundamentally a war of choice. Bush is dead wrong when he calls the war a pre-emptive one. Outside of the debunked British report, there really wasn’t evidence that Iraq had an imminent capability. Rather, this was preventive war, which runs against many traditions of appropriate military engagement (just war, for example), and other countries certainly picked up on that.
