[Peace-discuss] Hersh on the president and the war

[C. G. Estabrook]

[Some preparation for Bush's speech at the Naval Academy this
week. --CGE]

<http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/051205fa_fact>

  UP IN THE AIR
  Where is the Iraq war headed next?
  by SEYMOUR M. HERSH

  Issue of 2005-12-05
  Posted 2005-11-28

[...]

Current and former military and intelligence 
officials have told me that the President remains 
convinced that it is his personal mission to 
bring democracy to Iraq, and that he is 
impervious to political pressure, even from 
fellow Republicans. They also say that he 
disparages any information that conflicts with 
his view of how the war is proceeding.

Bush's closest advisers have long been aware of 
the religious nature of his policy commitments. 
In recent interviews, one former senior official, 
who served in Bush's first term, spoke 
extensively about the connection between the 
President's religious faith and his view of the 
war in Iraq. After the September 11, 2001, 
terrorist attacks, the former official said, he 
was told that Bush felt that "God put me here" to 
deal with the war on terror. The President's 
belief was fortified by the Republican sweep in 
the 2002 congressional elections; Bush saw the 
victory as a purposeful message from God that 
"he's the man," the former official said. 
Publicly, Bush depicted his reëlection as a 
referendum on the war; privately, he spoke of it 
as another manifestation of divine purpose.

The former senior official said that after the 
election he made a lengthy inspection visit to 
Iraq and reported his findings to Bush in the 
White House: "I said to the President, 'We're not 
winning the war.' And he asked, 'Are we losing?' 
I said, 'Not yet.' " The President, he said, 
"appeared displeased" with that answer.

"I tried to tell him," the former senior official 
said. "And he couldn't hear it."

There are grave concerns within the military 
about the capability of the U.S. Army to sustain 
two or three more years of combat in Iraq. 
Michael O'Hanlon, a specialist on military issues 
at the Brookings Institution, told me, "The 
people in the institutional Army feel they don't 
have the luxury of deciding troop levels, or even 
participating in the debate. They're planning on 
staying the course until 2009. I can't believe 
the Army thinks that it will happen, because 
there's no sustained drive to increase the size 
of the regular Army." O'Hanlon noted that "if the 
President decides to stay the present course in 
Iraq some troops would be compelled to serve 
fourth and fifth tours of combat by 2007 and 
2008, which could have serious consequences for 
morale and competency levels."

Many of the military's most senior generals are 
deeply frustrated, but they say nothing in 
public, because they don't want to jeopardize 
their careers. The Administration has "so 
terrified the generals that they know they won't 
go public," a former defense official said. A 
retired senior C.I.A. officer with knowledge of 
Iraq told me that one of his colleagues recently 
participated in a congressional tour there. The 
legislators were repeatedly told, in meetings 
with enlisted men, junior officers, and generals 
that "things were fucked up." But in a subsequent 
teleconference with Rumsfeld, he said, the 
generals kept those criticisms to themselves.

One person with whom the Pentagon's top 
commanders have shared their private views for 
decades is Representative John Murtha, of 
Pennsylvania, the senior Democrat on the House 
Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. The 
President and his key aides were enraged when, on 
November 17th, Murtha gave a speech in the House 
calling for a withdrawal of troops within six 
months. The speech was filled with devastating 
information. For example, Murtha reported that 
the number of attacks in Iraq has increased from 
a hundred and fifty a week to more than seven 
hundred a week in the past year. He said that an 
estimated fifty thousand American soldiers will 
suffer "from what I call battle fatigue" in the 
war, and he said that the Americans were seen as 
"the common enemy" in Iraq. He also took issue 
with one of the White House's claims-that foreign 
fighters were playing the major role in the 
insurgency. Murtha said that American soldiers 
"haven't captured any in this latest 
activity"-the continuing battle in western Anbar 
province, near the border with Syria. "So this 
idea that they're coming in from outside, we 
still think there's only seven per cent."

Murtha's call for a speedy American pullout only 
seemed to strengthen the White House's resolve. 
Administration officials "are beyond angry at 
him, because he is a serious threat to their 
policy-both on substance and politically," the 
former defense official said. Speaking at the 
Osan Air Force base, in South Korea, two days 
after Murtha's speech, Bush said, "The terrorists 
regard Iraq as the central front in their war 
against humanity. . . . If they're not stopped, 
the terrorists will be able to advance their 
agenda to develop weapons of mass destruction, to 
destroy Israel, to intimidate Europe, and to 
break our will and blackmail our government into 
isolation. I'm going to make you this commitment: 
this is not going to happen on my watch."

"The President is more determined than ever to 
stay the course," the former defense official 
said. "He doesn't feel any pain. Bush is a 
believer in the adage 'People may suffer and die, 
but the Church advances.' " He said that the 
President had become more detached, leaving more 
issues to Karl Rove and Vice-President Cheney. 
"They keep him in the gray world of religious 
idealism, where he wants to be anyway," the 
former defense official said. Bush's public 
appearances, for example, are generally scheduled 
in front of friendly audiences, most often at 
military bases. Four decades ago, President 
Lyndon Johnson, who was also confronted with an 
increasingly unpopular war, was limited to 
similar public forums. "Johnson knew he was a 
prisoner in the White House," the former official 
said, "but Bush has no idea."

[...]