The Bush Administration Has No Credibility On Iraq

Even Paul Krugman is become impatient with mainstream media's lack of truth sharing about Iraq. While I don't agree with his assumption we must get out of Iraq. I still hold to the view of Colin Powell, "We broke it, we own it." When the Iraqi government asks us to leave, or establish a time table, we should start packing. Until then, we have a job to finish, as best we can.
It appears that many people in this country, some of whom are quite influential, have lost faith in our Democracy. Our way of self-governing requires an informed and actively participating electorate to make sure our leaders truly represent us. Some editorial boards and sponsors of major media do not want to inform or allow debate. They wish to encourage government to operate secretly under policies that only the leaders know about. The don't trust the electorate to understand enough about the realities of the world to give appropriate consent to govern. Too many of our countrymen are content to blindly follow our leaders, allow no debate or discussion or even adequate information to be aired. One such voter emailed me today. Bill says:

keep up the good work. the terrorists need all the support you can give them.

Apparently Bill feels that providing an alternative source of information about Iraq is tantamount to comforting the enemy. Karl Rove similarly ridicules the left for wishing to use our penal system as it's conceived and developed under law and then proceeds to make a prejudicial statement of mental illness.
Our country is at great risk. Bigoted people run our government today. They seek to undermine our rule of law, our freedom of speech, our right to privacy, the checks and balances of our system including our right to be informed and give consent to be governed. Too many voters are willing to blindly follow them right into a new fascist state.
Yes, and we liberals will be happy to discuss our beliefs openly, educate the people and point out the risk to our way of life. Meanwhile, the FBI and Homeland Security is free to search our mail, our houses, imprison some of us based on information that would not hold up in court, deny us access to an attorney, or even a trial before our peers, all without due process in the form of consent of a judge.
It can't be long before the law is amended to allow imprisonment for sedition, a word not heard in this land since the Red Coats ruled and taxed us without our consent. Just who are the patriots?
Paul Krugman - The War President - New York Times

The United States will soon have to start reducing force levels in Iraq, or risk seeing the volunteer Army collapse. Yet the administration and its supporters have effectively prevented any adult discussion of the need to get out.


On one side, the people who sold this war, unable to face up to the fact that their fantasies of a splendid little war have led to disaster, are still peddling illusions: the insurgency is in its "last throes," says Dick Cheney. On the other, they still have moderates and even liberals intimidated: anyone who suggests that the United States will have to settle for something that falls far short of victory is accused of being unpatriotic.


We need to deprive these people of their ability to mislead and intimidate. And the best way to do that is to make it clear that the people who led us to war on false pretenses have no credibility, and no right to lecture the rest of us about patriotism.

Complete Article
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June 24, 2005
The War President
By PAUL KRUGMAN
VIENNA
In this former imperial capital, every square seems to contain a giant statue of a Habsburg on horseback, posing as a conquering hero.
America's founders knew all too well how war appeals to the vanity of rulers and their thirst for glory. That's why they took care to deny presidents the kingly privilege of making war at their own discretion.
But after 9/11 President Bush, with obvious relish, declared himself a "war president." And he kept the nation focused on martial matters by morphing the pursuit of Al Qaeda into a war against Saddam Hussein.
In November 2002, Helen Thomas, the veteran White House correspondent, told an audience, "I have never covered a president who actually wanted to go to war" - but she made it clear that Mr. Bush was the exception. And she was right.
Leading the nation wrongfully into war strikes at the heart of democracy. It would have been an unprecedented abuse of power even if the war hadn't turned into a military and moral quagmire. And we won't be able to get out of that quagmire until we face up to the reality of how we got in.
Let me talk briefly about what we now know about the decision to invade Iraq, then focus on why it matters.
The administration has prevented any official inquiry into whether it hyped the case for war. But there's plenty of circumstantial evidence that it did.
And then there's the Downing Street Memo - actually the minutes of a prime minister's meeting in July 2002 - in which the chief of British overseas intelligence briefed his colleagues about his recent trip to Washington.
"Bush wanted to remove Saddam," says the memo, "through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and W.M.D. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." It doesn't get much clearer than that.
The U.S. news media largely ignored the memo for five weeks after it was released in The Times of London. Then some asserted that it was "old news" that Mr. Bush wanted war in the summer of 2002, and that W.M.D. were just an excuse. No, it isn't. Media insiders may have suspected as much, but they didn't inform their readers, viewers and listeners. And they have never held Mr. Bush accountable for his repeated declarations that he viewed war as a last resort.
Still, some of my colleagues insist that we should let bygones be bygones. The question, they say, is what we do now. But they're wrong: it's crucial that those responsible for the war be held to account.
Let me explain. The United States will soon have to start reducing force levels in Iraq, or risk seeing the volunteer Army collapse. Yet the administration and its supporters have effectively prevented any adult discussion of the need to get out.
On one side, the people who sold this war, unable to face up to the fact that their fantasies of a splendid little war have led to disaster, are still peddling illusions: the insurgency is in its "last throes," says Dick Cheney. On the other, they still have moderates and even liberals intimidated: anyone who suggests that the United States will have to settle for something that falls far short of victory is accused of being unpatriotic.
We need to deprive these people of their ability to mislead and intimidate. And the best way to do that is to make it clear that the people who led us to war on false pretenses have no credibility, and no right to lecture the rest of us about patriotism.
The good news is that the public seems ready to hear that message - readier than the media are to deliver it. Major media organizations still act as if only a small, left-wing fringe believes that we were misled into war, but that "fringe" now comprises much if not most of the population.
In a Gallup poll taken in early April - that is, before the release of the Downing Street Memo - 50 percent of those polled agreed with the proposition that the administration "deliberately misled the American public" about Iraq's W.M.D. In a new Rasmussen poll, 49 percent said that Mr. Bush was more responsible for the war than Saddam Hussein, versus 44 percent who blamed Saddam.
Once the media catch up with the public, we'll be able to start talking seriously about how to get out of Iraq.
E-mail: krugman@nytimes.com
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company