Bush Apologists Never Quit

Peter Feaver, former NSC advisor in the Bush administration, trots out the latest screed on why we evil liberal bloggers ought to stop saying "Bush lied, people died."

 Some of the key premises on which the Bush administration based the 2002-2003 Iraq policy turned out to be wrong. And the conduct of the war had its share of problems. I think most experienced Bush hands would agree that the administration did not adapt fast enough to the evolving Iraqi insurgency. There are plenty of hard lessons for current and future administrations in the truth about Iraq. There is no need for the policy community to be mired in debating untruths.

Such a fine line between "incompetent," "distorted the facts," and "lied." A commenter suggests that a dishonest government is worse than an incompetent one, but I'll say that the Bush administration was both. The Bush apologists like to fixate on the issue of whether the intelligence community was right or wrong about assessing the maturity and capabilities of Saddam's WMD program, and how the policy makers were just going with the intelligence statements. But that continues to miss the point.

No where in the NIEs or other intelligence assessments was it stated that Iraq's WMD program - or it's potential products - represented an unacceptable threat to U.S. interests. Intel guys like to avoid making statements like that, because that's what policy makers are supposed to do - and they did make those statements. The Bush administration is on the record for developing a political climate where it became acceptable to invade a country to show that American might had not diminished after 9/11. The neocons thought that creating an American-style democracy in the Middle East was not only possible, but that it could be done on the cheap.

Feaver has a track record of trying to explain away the Bush administration's - ah, "distorted" views and actions with regards to Iraq and Afghanistan. It's nice that he (and others) can make a career out of it, but that won't change the facts of the situation. But in the meantime, George W. Bush, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, and Tony Blair have made millions since they've left office and haven't been held to account for their actions. And they probably won't, until enough years have passed for the true academic historians to make the case.

Comments

[James]

They cannot escape the role that political appointees played in the distortion of intelligence. Over and over again they meddled with analysts' conclusions, demanded to see the raw information, and pulled "facts" out of the analysts' trash bins and placed them front and center in the briefing books they sent to Congress and the leaks they skillfully deployed in the press.

You are dead right: they were both malevolent AND incompetent. There are certainly plenty of "hard truths" to be learned, and one of them is that the other institutions of the government and society must be quicker to restrain the Executive Branch at times when its failure becomes a threat to the national interest.

[Carl O.]

The Bush/Cheney regime was as bad as any I've ever seen. So the question that you liberal bloggers ought to be asking, is why hasn't the party that replaced them in power begun a serious investigation. Even in Britain, there's a serious investigation going on, and that by the same party, albeit a different prime minister, that sent the country to war. While there is much debate in Britain about just how serious that investigation really is, it has nonetheless led to some revelations about the intentions and lies of Tony Blair and company. We have nothing official, like that, to show.

The reason why it must be done, is that the crimes of an administration in power become rpecedents if they are not repudiated by a successor administration.

[J.]

"...why hasn't the party that replaced them in power begun a serious investigation."

Because Democratic politicians are pussies and act like beaten spouses when confronted with national security issues. Also because many of them are ashamed that they supported the Iraqi invasion and don't want to be accused of hypocracy. Which takes us back to point one.

Maybe the UK's Liberal party was a little more vocal against going to war in Iraq and now they can open up on the issue. I'll have to ask Ray about that.

[NVH]

I completely disagree with the characterization of ol James up there about malevolence. I'll give you a bit of incompetence, but at least they questioned the intelligence and in light of the aftermath of 9-11 and that chaotic environment, the surprise is that they went way right on defense and preventative action? Really? really?
At least Bush and Cheney don't have to live with the fact that Clinton had his dick in the wrong chick and that was why he couldn't pull the trigger on Bin Laden and his farmhouse wives dying from a "preventive action"...because it would be worse for Clinton politically, who also made money after he got out of office by the way...oh and lets not forget the reason they aren't being investigated is b/c what they did was legal, either made that way during or argued rightly the entire time, and therefore has no basis for evidence and an investigation, plus it would look bad considering Obama and his boys are basically doing the SAME DAMN THING and talking out of the other side of his mouth.
Maybe that's why he was so bad at speeches, J. Bush only had one opening to speak through and Obama has trained himself to speak out of both sides...damn I think that's it.