At what point did you come to the conclusion that this administrations' plans for Iraq would not work?
Before the invasion started, like many advisers? 2003, like many in Congress? 2004, as everyone laid out his or her position for the presidential campaign? 2006, when Murtha and McCain came at it from their different perspectives?
Well, as this commentary damns George Bush for indecision, stubbornness and - if I can be permitted to add to the title - stupidity, I am going to allow him that the realisation did not come to him until someone whispered in his ear that his dad's old buddy, James Baker, should take a look at the mess.
When did this need, to review what was going wrong, start? Well, we don't know when the idea was first mooted, kicked around and finally agreed. We do know that the formation of the Group was announced on 15th March, 2006. So, it seems not unfair to take that as the point at which some realisation dawned on George Bush that what Kerry had said in 2004 was true. That it was not until then that he heard most clearly that even his friends believed that his current Iraq policy was in grave need of serious review.
We are told that throughout their period of work, Baker and the ISG were in regular contact with the White House, especially with National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley and President Bush. So he cannot claim that he "never saw the memo".
When I moved from my large Berkshire home outside London to this tiny marina house in Wales, I brought with me an old long-case clock. A grandfather clock that had once stood in the 1920's environment of a London hotel. I love it. In this small open plan environment, the loud tick-tocks of its immense pendulum resonates like a heartbeat into every space and on the hour, its deep toned bell strikes the hour to alert even near neighbours to the passing of time. It is hell for anyone coming here to stay and trying to sleep. To the frustration of my guests, it is so familiar to me that I have stopped hearing it.
George Bush had, as his ticking reminder of time passing, the deaths of young US men and women serving in that blighted country into which he had ordered his military and followed some months later and announced the mission achieved on May 1, 2003. He acknowledged this in what now seems a an increasingly preposterous and tragic speech:
After service in the Afghan and Iraqi theaters of war, after 100,000 miles on the longest carrier deployment in recent history, you are homeward bound.
Some of you will see new family members for the first time; 150 babies were born while their fathers were on the Lincoln. Your families are proud of you, and your nation will welcome you.
We are mindful as well that some good men and women are not making the journey home. One of those who fell, Corporal Jason Mileo, spoke to his parents five days before his death. Jason's father said, "He called us from the center of Baghdad, not to brag but to tell us he loved us. Our son was a soldier."
Every name, every life is a loss to our military, to our nation and to the loved ones who grieve. There is no homecoming for these families. Yet we pray in God's time their reunion will come.
Those we lost were last seen on duty.
Just as I no longer hear the ticking of my clock, George Bush seemed to stop hearing his own personal reminder of the passing of time. A reminder that should have come from the loud noise of the steady flow of numbers passing across his desk, if indeed they do, telling of those killed and maimed at his behest.
From the beginning of March 2006 and the end of October 2006, another 523 died and for whom there was no homecoming or new-born babies to see for the first time.
The time for the Iraq Study Group to undertake its work, these seven and half months, were costly in the lives of the country's bravest. Nor was this work undertaken alone. We learnt that Bush had set up White House and Pentagon groups to study the situation in parallel to also report on the situation. A triple team that Bush could play off against each other if he didn't like the outcome of one of them. Yet also a triple set of alternative solutions to put right what was going wrong.
We do not know exactly when the Baker team concluded their work. I will estimate this as late as the end of October, based on a horrific fact that was allowed to pass virtually unnoticed by the mainstream media, although not by the blogs. At the press briefing that was to eventually announce the findings on December 6 2006, Baker said that the results had been delayed for the political purposes of not interfering with the mid-term elections. This cynical delay from the beginning of November to early December cost at least another 69 lives whilst the need for change had been identified but no decision to implement it had been taken.
Bush promised to look at the findings in order to achieve a bi-partisan consensus. We were led to believe that his response would come in December. Instead he held photo opportunities with the Pentagon and a visit to the State Department to show that he was really thinking hard about it all. Over Christmas, he spent three hours with his advisors giving it more consideration. Still no decision was made and another 111 deaths were added to the total since the Baker report began its work. A total of 703 deaths in an unchanged war that Bush was told to change by those closest to him so many months ago. And still we do not know when we will hear his answer to all these deaths.
Now, when I have guests staying overnight, I walk over to my grandfather clock and open the case in the evening and stop the swinging of the pendulum. No one has been able to walk over to Iraq in all this time and stop the steady progression of the death toll. That is why I accuse Bush of indecision, stubbornness and stupidity.
Postscript: I have included only the cost in terms of US military deaths in my calculation. I am grateful to John Tirman, executive director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Center for International Studies, for a better costing given on Newsday.com:
For all the talk about the violence in Iraq, Americans are focusing little attention on the human costs to the Iraqis. The Iraq Study Group report, for example, which is a kind of national temperature gauge of the public's mood, fails to express much sympathy or regret for the chaos and colossal loss of Iraqi lives. In this oversight, if that's what it is, an essential lesson is lost about this war.
The Iraq Study Group includes a number of references to the hardship and danger for U.S. forces. It speaks of growing violence caused by insurgents, militias and criminals. But where is the analysis of the role of the U.S. military in the violence and carnage suffered by the Iraqi people?
This skewed perspective is reflected among think tank analysts and news commentators. What matters in most of these accounts is that U.S. troops are caught in the crossfire of ancient rivalries within Islam. The major opinion pollsters have not asked about Americans' concerns about the carnage in Iraq except as it relates to Americans. The slew of journalists' reports of the war have essentially ignored Iraqi fatalities as well.
I have also ignored British and allied deaths, in the recognition that, to Bush, those that were foolish enough to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with him and the United States are, after all, only European foreigners.
References:
Iraq Coalition Casualties
United States Institute for Peace Timeline
CNN Bush "Misssion Achieved" speech transcript.
Wikipedia - Iraq Study Group
Cross-posted from ePluribus Media