Taking Bush to School on the War in Iraq

W is a bullshitter from way back. We all know that. You can imagine how he handled final exams during high school and his 5 or 6 years of college education. He wouldn't have read a single book in the syllabus. On an American history final, his answer on the causes of the Civil War would have read something like, "The Civil War was an interesting war. In other words, it is worth knowing that there's reasons the two sides, who were the North and the South, went to war. One thing was slavery. Another was the different things they didn't share. In other words, differences in the two different parts of the country." Et cetera. His public explanations for all the stupid things he does as President have this quality of meandering vacuity. Doubtless, given the easy path afforded him by life, his privileged background, the guaranteed entrance to elite halls of learning, none of which he ever came close to actually earning, Bush couldn't help but form the opinion that he could get what he wanted simply because of who he was, and that any sort of disciplined mastery of the subject matter of a profession, for example, was for others who had to try hard to make money. People would simply give him money and grease his track to success. Thus, Bush was spared the arduous task of learning how to form and express opinions based on actual mastery of a factual record or evidence, as one does in law, medicine, science, teaching, or anything else humans do where you need to know your ass from a hole in the ground.

Naturally Bush carried this same know-nothing approach to his job as President, and fully expected, because he's George W. Bush, that the public would afford great deference to his inane utterances, however specious, illogical or even illegal. It is the reason his answers to questions at press conferences have the quality of term papers begun and finished at 2 am on the day they are due, copied from a World Book Encyclopedia, and probably from the wrong volume. As a specific example, the rationale for the war in Iraq, as given most recently in Monday's press conference:

"Now look, part of the reason we went into Iraq was -- the main reason we went into Iraq, at the time, was we thought he had weapons of mass destruction. It turns out he didn't, but he had the capacity to make weapons of mass destruction.

"But I also talked about the human suffering in Iraq. And I also saw the need to advance a freedom agenda. And so my answer to your question is that -- imagine a world in which Saddam Hussein was there, stirring up even more trouble in a part of the world that had so much resentment and so much hatred that people came and killed 3,000 of our citizens."

Here is what Congress in 2002 actually authorized Bush to do:

"SEC. 3. AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES.

(a) AUTHORIZATION. The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to

(1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and

(2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council Resolutions regarding Iraq.

(b) PRESIDENTIAL DETERMINATION.

In connection with the exercise of the authority granted in subsection (a) to use force the President shall, prior to such exercise or as soon thereafter as may be feasible, but no later than 48 hours after exercising such authority, make available to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate his determination that

(1) reliance by the United States on further diplomatic or other peaceful means alone either (A) will not adequately protect the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq or (B) is not likely to lead to enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq, and..."

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The Resolution is noteworthy because the operative language of the Authorization refers specifically to United Nations resolutions regarding Iraq's obligations to cooperate in inspections and disclosure of WMD stockpiles, which we now know (for certain, but as strongly suggested at the time) did not exist in March, 2003. Elsewhere in the Authorization (in the Preambles), Congress does make reference to the "sense" of Congress that regime change in Iraq is desirable, based upon a 1998 Congressional Resolution to this effect. However, using a canon of statutory construction by which all parts of the legislation are consulted to determine its overall meaning, note that the Authorization further requires the President to report on the efficacy of negotiations to secure either the (a) security of the United States or (b) compliance with UN resolutions by Iraq. While at the very 11th hour, Bush (no doubt on the advice of counsel) "offered" to resolve the looming conflict through the immediate abdication of Saddam and his two sons, in fact the Authorization strongly suggests that force was not to be used if negotiations with Saddam (as the leader of a sovereign country) could succeed in achieving UN compliance, which ipso facto would also alleviate any "threat" posed by Iraq to the United States. Thus, "regime change" was not itself a sufficient condition for American military action against Iraq; it is not a realistic construction of the Authorization to imagine that Congress envisioned negotiations with Iraq which would effect regime change, and failing such voluntary abdication, that force was authorized. The UN Resolutions, of course, did not in any sense require Iraq to depose or replace its leader as a condition of compliance.

Therefore, the amelioration of "human suffering" in Iraq through regime change was not a basis for an authorized American invasion. With all of his official rationales in a shambles (WMD, ties to al-Qaeda), Bush, ever the undisciplined student, simply pulled this reason out of his ass and acted as if it justified the continuing American presence in Iraq. It "sounds good." He intends, in his shifty way, to put reporters and detractors on the defensive: are you for human suffering in Iraq?

Here is where we are: there simply is no Congressionally authorized basis (or authority from the United Nations) for the American military to remain in Iraq. Iraq does not have and did not have at the relevant time any weapons of mass destruction. It had no ties to al-Qaeda and was completely uninvolved in the attacks of 9-11, as even The Decider conceded categorically at the press conference. The present Iraqi "regime" cannot pose a credible threat to the United States homeland; the ability of any Iraqi to pose a serious and immediate threat to the United States depends completely on the military remaining in the country with a target painted on itself. If the standard now is that Iraqis who are pissed off at the USA because of the occupation pose such an enduring threat, then no rational basis for ever leaving Iraq can exist until every last Iraqi is dead. A project which probably has occurred to Bush.

The "freedom agenda" which Bush first announced at his (ugh) 2nd Inaugural was never part of a UN Resolution or of Congress's Authorization. The actual premises for the invasion no longer exist because (1) the Hussein regime cannot be a threat to the United States if there is no Hussein regime, and (2) the question of compliance on WMD has become entirely moot.

What Bush is now arguing is that America should continue expending lives and $1.6 billion per week (money which the United States simply does not have and has to borrow from Asian creditors) until a certain type of government in Iraq appears (to Bush) sufficiently stable. This has nothing whatsoever to do with the Authorization to Use Military Force, and is in fact light years away from the original rationale. American soldiers should not die, and America should not go broke, for a theory of social engineering concocted by a goof-off who didn't know the difference between Shia and Sunni until he began to awe himself with the shock of the first bombing runs.