Hidden War Costs

Condi Rice is really putting the screws to Russia over its invasion of Georgia. She said yesterday that "This is not 1968 and the invasion of Czechoslovakia where Russia can threaten a neighbour, occupy a capital, overthrow a government and get away with it. Things have changed."

Yes, things have changed. Look at what we're doing now that Russia has invaded Georgia. We're talking sternly about it. And we're scowling at them. See us scowl?

I'm sorry, but this is another hidden cost of the war in Iraq. I think that part of the Russian calculation in deciding to invade Georgia was its knowledge that we're not really in a position to respond militarily. We're distracted and overcommitted as it is. We can talk tough, but what are we actually going to do? We can hardly send troops in -- our troops are all busy where they are.

I know that Rice and the administration are going to try to put diplomatic pressure on Russia, threatening them with isolation, being booted out of the G8, and not admitted to the WTO. And good luck, I hope it works. But we'd be in a much stronger position if we had a realistic military option.

5, 4000

A double milestone for the Iraq war this past week, neither happy -- the war reached its fifth anniversary and the number of U.S. military deaths reached 4000. It's an appropriate time to look back.

Republicans and Democrats seem trapped in their official narratives about the war. The Republicans seem incapable of admitting that the war was a big, fat, bad idea, and bungled to boot. President Bush started an unnecessary war based on false intelligence, baldly lied about how long the war would take, how much it would cost, and how many casualties would be incurred. He turned it over to the arrogant and incompetent Donald Rumsfeld, who mismanaged it about as badly as could be imagined, so that it's already taken 10 times as long and cost 10 times as much as the least optimistic original estimates, and the end is not in sight. That kind of thing tends to cancel out the good things that your presidency has accomplished -- not that Bush had a whole lot of good things to cancel out, anyway.

On the other hand, Democrats seem incapable of acknowledging that things are going at least a little better lately. U.S. military deaths have slowed to about 1 per day -- an awful figure, but a whole lot less awful than the 3-4 per day we were previously experiencing. Iraqi deaths are down too. It's terrible and tragic that we've lost 4000 troops, but that's still not even 10% of the losses in Vietnam. Democrats also need to acknowledge that as stupid as the war was, it's happened, and can't be wished back into nonexistence. We need a strategy going forward that starts from where we are now.

Unfortunately, it's hardly a great accomplishment to be able to say that after 5 years, 4000 American deaths, and $500 billion, we've managed to get to a situation that's only bad, as opposed to appalling, and that might reasonably be hoped to stay only bad for at least a while now. I heard an interview over the weekend with some returning soldier who suggested that we need to "finish the job." But what is "the job" and what would constitute "finishing" it? To "finish the job" we would need to stay in Iraq indefinitely, probably for another decade, and lose another three or four thousand troops, and spend another trillion dollars or so, and what would be the best result? The original idea of creating a stable, pro-Western democracy seems a hopeless dream.

It's ironic that Republicans would be the first to scream if you seriously suggested a ten-year, trillion-dollar federal government effort to improve society here in the U.S. Yet they're all gung ho to have that same government spend that amount trying to improve things halfway around the globe.

Last week, Barack Obama spoke openly and honestly about problems of race in America. He said things that few politicians have dared to say. He treated us like adults and spoke honestly about the sources of our racial problems.

Could someone, perhaps Obama, do the same for Iraq? I don't see a way to a solution until someone gets honest about the problem.

The Audacity of Turkey

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is taking a "sharper tone" toward the Turkish raids in Northern Iraq, saying that "It’s very important that the Turks make this operation as short as possible and then leave."

Wow -- Turkey seems to think that a nation can just invade Iraq. Without any other nation's permission. And stay as long as it thinks necessary to achieve its objectives. And just because it perceives happenings in Iraq as a threat to its own national security.

Imagine that. Obviously we can't support that. Nope, they'd better leave right away.

Beating the Drum

One thing the Republicans are very good at is reminding the public, again and again and again, of the problems they perceive with Democratic leaders. During the Clinton years, even the smallest scandals -- Travelgate, say -- got mentioned endlessly, again and again, for years on end, even long after they were over.

The Democrats need to take this page out of the Republican playbook. As 2007 comes to a close, the chief scandal of the Bush administration, the Iraq war, seems to be in a somewhat equivocal state. On the one hand, 2007 was the deadliest year of all for U.S. troops, with nearly 900 fatalities; on the other hand, Iraq's security situation has improved considerably over the last few months and the rate of fatalities is down sharply.

But no matter how you look at it, it's still a scandal. The Democrats need to help the public remember:

* In 2003, before the start of the war, Donald Rumsfeld originally said the war would cost less than $50 billion.

* Some weeks later, the Pentagon estimated that the war would cost $60 - $95 billion. Paul Wolfowitz criticized the $95 billion upper end as too high.

* In fact, direct military spending alone already exceeds $368 billion and the total cost may be $1 trillion. Why, the White House just demanded and got another $70 billion.

Perhaps Democrats think the public would get bored if these figures were mentioned over and over again. But if the party situations were reversed, you'd be hearing them every day -- probably more than once.

Blood and Treasure

NYT colmumnist Frank Rich becomes the latest to complain about all the "treasure" that America is expending on the Iraq war. He says "troops and treasure," although I've been hearing "blood and treasure" a lot lately.

What is up with this "treasure" business? Are we funding the war with gold dubloons?

Is it too crass to complain about all of the MONEY we're wasting? Google reveals that "blood and treasure" can be found in a quotation from John Adams, so maybe this is supposed to be some kind of highbrow allusion, but really, I'm sensing that people are just a little reluctant to point out that we're spending a shatteringly large pile of cash in Iraq and getting a big mess in return.

Is the problem that complaining about money would make one seem insensitive to the loss of life? I'm all for putting the lives first -- it's tragic that thousands of our troops have died in this misadventure, to say nothing of all the other lives lost. But money is a legitimate concern too, particularly when you consider what else it could buy. We're spending over $100 billion per year, and that's just the direct spending cost. Normally, one might expect fiscal conservatives to holler loudly about the money.

Let's stop calling it "treasure." Americans have a right to complain about many things connected with this war, and one is the waste of good old money. This war is a huge, inefficient government program, and at the moment it looks like we're going to spend hundreds of billions more and in the end have nothing to show for it.

Guns Gone Astray

It's become a cliche that the Bush Administration is so intent on vindicating the conservative belief that government is incompetent that it almost seems to screw things up deliberately. But really, this is too much. Of the 355,000 pistols and AK-47 rifles that the U.S. has distributed to Iraqi forces, 190,000 are missing, according to a new GAO report. Pentagon officials "really have no idea where they are." Hmmm, could they be in the hands of the insurgents who are fighting us?

I'm sure it's not easy keeping track of things amid the hubbub of war. But the GAO found no problems accounting for weapons distributed to the Bosnian Federation Army during the Bosnian conflict. So it's not impossible to do these things properly. But one has to believe that a government intent on proving that government is bad is more likely to do a bad job.

And by the way, who was in charge of security training during the period when, according to GAO, "distribution was haphazard and rushed and failed to follow established procedures"? None other than Gen. David H. Petraeus, who's now in charge of the whole shooting match. Let's hope he's keeping better track of things now.

Time for a Real Filibuster

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid plans an all-night session to highlight Republican intransigence on allowing Iraq war measures to come to a vote. And about time, too! It's bad enough that the filibuster has become such a routine mechanism that basically nothing can get through the Senate without a 60-vote supermajority. Even worse is the practice of allowing the filibustering minority to keep bankers' hours.

If the Republicans want to filibuster the Democrats' proposals to bring our troops home from Iraq, they have they power under the rules, but let's make them really do it. Let's see them on their feet all night, in good, old-fashioned, real filibuster form. Maybe holding their feet to the floor long enough will inspire a little compromise on actually bringing matters to a vote.

This Afternoon

I've been imagining that my feeling that it would be best to close our extraordinary prison in Guantanamo Bay just reflects my profound ignorance of military and international security matters. Sure, it seems from my naive, uninformed viewpoint that, even assuming we put aside all questions about legality and just ruthlessly follow our national interests, Guantanamo's negative impact on our national values and international standing outweigh whatever advantage we get from keeping people we regard as terrorists or enemy combatants in a law-free, judge-proof, indefinite limbo. But what do I know? An important part of being a professor and a scholar is recognizing and admitting the limits of one's knowledge and information. I'm not in a good position to assess what Guantanamo is doing for us security-wise, and, for all I know, it really is helping a lot, maybe even so much that we should accept the negative consequences.

That's why I was so interested to see that Colin Powell says that if he were in charge he would close Guantanamo "this afternoon." Powell is in a position to weigh the costs and benefits of Guantanamo -- he's probably the most qualified person around. He's been a General, the National Security Advisor, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Secretary of State. If there's someone who's in a better position to assess how Guantanamo is helping and hurting us with regard to our military, national security, and diplomatic needs, and to weigh these all up against each other, I'd like to know who it is. And he says he would close Guantanamo because it has become a major problem in "the way the world perceives America."

So maybe the liberals are right after all. Getting your way internationally is not just a matter of flexing your military muscles in every super-macho way you want. Paying a little attention to diplomacy and international law actually helps too. It's not just me saying this, it's Colin Powell.

And while we're at it, here are a few other things the President could do this afternoon:

• Fire Alberto Gonzales and install an Attorney General who will enforce the laws honestly and impartially.
• Fire Lurita Doan and instruct all appointees who serve at his pleasure that government departments are not to be politicized.
• Admit that if we knew then what we know now, we would not have invaded Iraq.
• Apologize for his role in taking the nation into war based on incorrect information.
• Say that, however mistaken going into Iraq may have been in the first place, we're there now and we have to deal with the situation, come up with a truly credible plan for making Iraq succeed in a plausible time frame even though it will require sacrifices, and then implement the plan.

I know it's a little late in the Bush presidency and people are saying he's in his lame duck period, but wouldn't it be quite a jump-start if he admitted his past errors, swept the slate clean, and tried to do the right thing from here on out?

What the Spending Bill Says

The Iraq funding bill going to the President's desk is described as "requir[ing] troop withdrawals to begin by Oct. 1." But wasn't the bill also described as having "nonbinding" timelines? What does the bill actually say?

If you want to know what a statute says, there's nothing like actually reading it. H.R. 1591 is a massive bill; to find the relevant provisions you need to turn to sections 1901 and following. The answer is that the bill contains a mix of requirements and nonbinding goals.

First, there's a requirement about military units being "mission capable." Section 1901(b) requires that no money be spent to deploy a unit to Iraq "unless the chief of the military department concerned has certified in writing to the Committees on Appropriations and the Committees on Armed Services at least 15 days in advance of the deployment that the unit is fully mission capable." But section 1901(d) permits the President to waive this requirement on a unit-by-unit basis. So this turns out to be nonbinding, really.

Similarly, section 1902 prohibits the use of funds to deploy a reserve unit for more than 365 days (210 days for Marines), but again, the President may waive this limitation on a unit-by-unit basis. So, nonbinding.

Then section 1903 prohibits the use of funds to deploy a unit that was deployed within the last 365 days (210 days for Marines), but again, waivable by the President. Nonbinding.

Then we get to the nub of the matter. Section 1904(a) requires the President to report on Iraqi progress in achieving four benchmarks: (1) giving U.S. and Iraqi forces authority to pursue all extremists, and making substantial progress in delivering necessary Iraqi security forces, and other security-related matters, (2) meeting its commitment to pursue reconciliation initiatives, (3) reducing the level of sectarian violence, and (4) ensuring the rights of minority political parties.

If the President fails to determine that each of the benchmarks is being met, "the Secretary of Defense shall commence the redeployment of the Armed Forces from Iraq no later than July 1, 2007, with a goal of completing such redeployment within 180 days."

If the President determines that all of the benchmarks are being met, "the Secretary of Defense shall commence the redeployment of the Armed Forces from Iraq not later than October 1, 2007, with a goal of completing such redeployment within 180 days."

The, after the conclusion of the redeployment, forces can remain in Iraq only for limited purposes (e.g., protecting U.S. citizens and "Engaging in targeted special actions limited in duration and scope to killing or capturing members of al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations with global reach.")

So it looks like the bill really does require withdrawal. But read it carefully. It only requires the Secretary of Defense to "commence" the redeployment on July 1 or October 1. Technically, that could mean redeploying one soldier. And the completion of the redeployment within 180 days in either case is only a "goal."

So even this bill, I would say, is essentially nonbinding. If the President is willing to sign a bill with benchmarks and a nonbinding timetable, he could sign this one.

It's Confirmed

Just in case you were wondering whether the Bush Administration led us into war in Iraq based on rumors and exaggerations, sexed-up intelligence, and a pre-existing desire to take out Saddam rather than a belief that he represented an imminent threat, it's now confirmed by none other than former CIA Director and Medal of Freedom recipient George Tenet.

Tenet's new book asserts that "There was never a serious debate that I know of within the administration about the imminence of the Iraq threat," that "White House and Pentagon officials, and particularly Vice President Cheney, were determined to attack Iraq from the first days of the Bush administration, long before Sept. 11, 2001," and that there were "numerous efforts by aides to Cheney and then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to insert 'crap' into public justifications for the war," including a speech by Cheney in August 2002 that "went well beyond what our analysis could support."

The Bush Administration's response is that there was a lot of wrestling with all the very serious questions leading up to the war, but that "the former CIA director might have been unaware of all the discussions. " That makes sense. If you're going to discuss questions of war and peace that turn critically on the quality of foreign intelligence, the last person you'd want in the room would be the CIA Director.

Of course, Tenet has his own axe to grind and so he may not be the most credible of sources, especially having presided over perhaps the two most disastrous intelligence failures in U.S. history -- failing to detect the 9/11 plot and telling us that Saddam was developing weapons of mass destruction. But even the Administration's own former fair-haired boy is now telling us that the Administration deliberately led us into war based on overhyped intelligence.

Out of the Gates

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said yesterday that U.S. troop levels in Iraq could be reduced this year -- if the revised Iraq war plan announced by President Bush this week succeeds in reducing violence in the country.

In other news:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that the Arab-Israeli conflict could be resolved later this year -- if Israelis and Palestinians reveal that they secretly love each other.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said that the federal income tax could be eliminated later this year -- if people start sending in enough voluntary gifts to the U.S. treasury.

Transportation Secretary Mary Peters said that air fares could fall substantially later this year -- if enough people learn to flap their arms and fly.

General Won't Serve as Czar

Everyone should read this: a retired Marine Corps general's explanation of why he won't serve as the "White House implementation manager," or War Czar, for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Basically, he refused to take the job because he determined that the Administration has no strategy for winning the war.

I assume Marine Corps generals are not a bunch of bleeding-heart liberals eager to bash the administration. So when one of them says that "that there is no agreed-upon strategic view of the Iraq problem or the region," that "We cannot 'shorthand' this issue with concepts such as the 'democratization of the region' or the constant refrain by a small but powerful group that we are going to 'win,' even as 'victory' is not defined or is frequently redefined," and that "We got it right during the early days of Afghanistan -- and then lost focus. We have never gotten it right in Iraq," it's important to listen.

I have no idea what the solution is in Iraq. Even if one believes that starting the war was an enormous mistake, we can't wave a wand and make it unhappen. Planning for the future has to start with a recognition of where we are now. We may need to accept some sacrifices to marshal the resources that would be needed to succeed. But we're never going to succeed with a strategy that amounts to tinkering at the margins with what we've been doing unsuccessfully for four years in the hope that we can somehow muddle through. The President says that Iraq is the central front in the war on terror -- the most important fight in the world. If he's serious, then it's up to him to make sure we win. When even the generals basically say that he's just muddling through, we have a right to be angry.

Poof

I awoke this morning to the news that at least 56 people were killed by a car bombing at a bus station in Karbala and another 10 by a car bombing on a bridge in Baghdad. If you keep your radio tuned to the news and have it go off on the hour, that's often the first thing you hear -- how many people were killled by bombs in Iraq that day.

Living my comfortable life in the USA, I have, like many Americans, become numb to the daily reports of death and destruction in a far-off land, but every now and then, like this morning, it hits me that these reports we hear on the radio are about actual people. The statement "at least 56 people were killed" flashes by, but each of those 56 people had a mother, a father, a childhood; they grew up, perhaps they went to school, worked at jobs, fell in love, married, had children of their own, had dreams, hopes, heartaches, fears, aspirations, good and bad times, and then -- poof, in a second, someone who didn't even know them blows them up and their whole life is reduced to being part of a number read out at the top of the news. Thousands of miles away, all we hear is the number; we never even learn the names of the dead. And to the left of the article on the Washington Post website, the tantalizing headline beckons, "Prince William Single Again."

President Bush and Senator McCain say that we are making progress in Iraq; Senator McCain complains that American media aren't reporting the good news. But the car bombs explode almost every day.

Thank goodness it's not my job to figure out how to solve the Iraq problem. But it certainly seems like the 15% "surge" solution is unlikely to have much effect. I continue to think that a President who really wanted to achieve victory, and who really beliveved that Iraq was the most important front in the war on terror, would do something more like doubling our commitment in Iraq, and would explain to the American people why this step and the sacrifices it would entail were necessary.

In the meantime, the daily drumbeat of the numbers of the dead continues.

Cue the Orchestra

I'm sorry, but I just can't help thinking of the Pirates of Penzance every time I hear about Major General Stanley McChrystal, commander of the Joint Special Operations Command. Fortunately for him, he seems to have been promoted to Lieutenant General. Unfortunately for him, he is one of the officers implicated in the wrongful reporting of the friendly-fire death of Army Ranger Pat Tillman, back when he was a mere Major General. Investigators believe that he was "accountable for the inaccurate and misleading assertions" in papers recommending Tillman for a Silver Star. I guess he wasn't the very model of a modern Major General.

By the way, why does a Lieutenant General outrank a Major General?

One Bombing a Day

Laura Bush remarked that "many parts of Iraq are stable now. But, of course, what we see on television is the one bombing a day that discourages everybody."

Of course the President and numerous other administration officials have long complained that the media fail to cover all the good news from Iraq and just focus relentlessly on the bad news. Is this a valid complaint?

I'm sure Iraq today is a highly complex blend of events, with good news and bad news every day. But let's face it. If there were just one bombing once in our own nation's capital -- say, if someone blew up a car bomb at a market and killed 30 or 40 people -- it would be the only news, and not just for that day, but for days thereafter. Now imagine such a bombing occurring once every day in Washington, DC or in New York or Los Angeles. What would be on the news?

Security issues tend to overwhelm other issues. It's hard to enjoy the good news when you fear being blown up.

The Democrats Take on the War

I have previously criticized President Bush's proposed "surge" in troops as being unlikely to accomplish anything. Of course I know I'm a totally untrained armchair general mouthing off on an area on which I have no expertise, but if the current troops aren't accomplishing the mission, it's hard for me to understand how increasing the troops by 18% for a few months is really going to change matters. If the President proposed doubling the troop levels, I might think he was serious, but the proposed surge seems more like an attempt to make headlines than an attempt to accomplish anything real.

But by the same token, what is the point of the Democrats' big push to adopt a nonbinding resolution that declares congressional support for the troops but adds, "Congress disapproves of the decision of President George W. Bush announced on January 10, 2007, to deploy more than 20,000 additional United States combat troops to Iraq"? Has the United States somehow, magically, hit on exactly the right number of troops to be in Iraq right now? Is adding 18% more troops something to be so deplored that we need a congressional resolution about it? What if the President decided to send 1,000 more troops? Or move 1,000 troops from Fallujah to Baghdad? Should Congress disapprove that?

I certainly have my preferred side in political matters, and if you read this blog you'll have no trouble figuring out which side it is, but as a blogger and as a professor I feel some need to call things as I see them, and when either side makes a big, empty gesture it's hard not to point it out. The Democrats' nonbinding resolution seems about as likely to accomplish anything real as the President's surge.

Of course, when the Republicans controlled Congress, they did a brilliant job of holding symbolic votes that had little purpose other than to make Democrats uncomfortable. I can't fault the Democrats too much for doing the same thing. And also, I realize that it's tough for Congress to do much about strategic and tactical issues in a war. It's not well positioned to control things at that level. So the Democrats are in a bit of a tough spot. And the whole Iraq mess is of the President's making, so it's primarily his responsibility to deal with it.

Still, whatever the truly right thing to do is, it's hard for me to believe that it's passing a nonbinding resolution that just says, "whatever you do, Mr. President, we don't want you sending about 18% more troops to Iraq."

Posted 2-18-07 10:55 am