I Don't Remember Where the Buck Stops

Instead of taking responsibility for the decision to disband the Iraqi army, President Bush has said he doesn't remember much about it, and has given the appearance of trying to shift the responsibility elsewhere. But L. Paul Bremer says President Bush was aware of the decision and has released an "exchange of letters" to back up his claims.

But why should people have to provide evidence to force the president to take responsibility for key decisions about the war? He may not have been aware it was a key decision - that seems to be the case - but not understanding how important it was doesn't absolve him of responsibility for it. Instead, it highlights the poor understanding he and others in the administration had about what postwar conditions would be like, and what would be needed to stabilize the country:

Envoy’s Letters Counter Bush on Dismantling of Iraq Army, by Edmund Andrews, NY Times: A previously undisclosed exchange of letters shows that President Bush was told in advance by his top Iraq envoy in May 2003 of a plan to “dissolve Saddam’s military and intelligence structures,” a plan that the envoy, L. Paul Bremer, said referred to dismantling the Iraqi Army.

Mr. Bremer provided the letters to The New York Times on Monday after reading that Mr. Bush was quoted in a new book as saying that American policy had been “to keep the army intact” but that it “didn’t happen.”

The dismantling of the Iraqi Army in the aftermath of the American invasion is now widely regarded as a mistake that stoked rebellion... In releasing the letters, Mr. Bremer said he wanted to refute the suggestion in Mr. Bush’s comment that Mr. Bremer had acted to disband the army without the knowledge and concurrence of the White House. ...

In an interview with Robert Draper, author of the new book, “Dead Certain,” Mr. Bush sounded as if he had been taken aback by the decision, or at least by the need to abandon the original plan to keep the army together.

“The policy had been to keep the army intact; didn’t happen,” Mr. Bush told the interviewer. When Mr. Draper asked the president how he had reacted when he learned that the policy was being reversed, Mr. Bush replied, “Yeah, I can’t remember, I’m sure I said, “This is the policy, what happened?’”

Mr. Bremer indicated that he had been smoldering for months as other administration officials had distanced themselves from his order. “This didn’t just pop out of my head,” he said..., adding that he had sent a draft of the order to top Pentagon officials and discussed it “several times” with Mr. Rumsfeld.

A White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity .., said Mr. Bush indeed understood the order and was acknowledging in the interview with Mr. Draper that the original plan had proved unworkable.

“The plan was to keep the Iraqi Army intact...,” the official said. “But by the time Jerry Bremer announced the order, it was fairly clear that the Iraqi Army could not be reconstituted, and the president understood that. He was acknowledging that that was something that did not go as planned.”

But the letters, combined with Mr. Bush’s comments, suggest confusion within the administration about what quickly proved to be a decision with explosive repercussions. ...

On Monday, Mr. Bremer made it clear that he was unhappy about being portrayed as a renegade of sorts by a variety of former administration officials. ...

“I might add that it was not a controversial decision,” Mr. Bremer said. “The Iraqi Army had disappeared and the only question was whether you were going to recall the army. Recalling the army would have had very practical difficulties, and it would have political consequences. The army had been the main instrument of repression under Saddam Hussein. I would go on to argue that it was the right decision. I’m not second-guessing it.” ...

Just to be clear, he may not be second guessing the decision, but lots of other people are. As the article notes, it was "a major decision that a number of American military officials in Iraq strongly opposed."

Comments

[PeterRabid]

More lies warranting impeachment, but get Cheney first.

[PeterRabid]

First Gonzalez, now Bush suffering memory loss.

[bakho]

It fits the whole ideology that says government can do no good except for the military. Bush had no idea what it would take to stabilize Iraq. Bush had no idea what it would take to repair New Orleans. Bush has no idea what it takes to fund his spending. Bush has no idea what it takes to support our economy. We have been down this list numerous times and Bush always comes up clueless. By implementing GOP supply side "Small Government" policies, Bush has hopefully discredited this ideology for a generation or more.

[calmo]

Rummy's arrogance (the character of the entire administration resides with this man, no?) and political weight (you think I'm glossing over Cheney but you need to revisit their media interview styles to confirm this) [This B a Rummy style interview: "Shudup and I'll ask the questions."] swamping any other views that might lodge in The President's head (bring me a microscope Watson and see if it ain't so).

[pgl]

George Bush lied about Iraq? What do we tell the children?

[CALLAHAN]

Time for Ron Paul.

[robertdfeinman]

Suppose GWB was suffering from some sort of mental illness. For the purposes of the ideologues running the administration he is the personable face that they need to front their policies. So one could expect that they would do everything they could to keep him in place and shield his condition from the public.

This is not so far fetched. After Wilson suffered his stroke, no one except a few key people saw him again. His wife would go into his room and come out with his "decisions".

The signs that Bush (and Cheney) are delusional are incontrovertible. Many people want to claim that they are lying, I prefer to think that they have lost touch with reality.

In the case of Bush some of the signs of mental illness are fairly obvious. One only has to look at Dave Letterman's nightly excerpt of a Bush speech to see one example. He frequently blanks out in the middle of a sentence and loses all idea of what he is saying. When he recovers he often finishes the thought in an inappropriate fashion.

It can also be seen that his staff does everything possible to shield him from unpleasant reality. The key example in this case was after Katrina where they were all afraid to tell him the level of disaster and it took one brave staffer to put together a DVD to show him. Rallies are always in front of carefully screened crowds with dissenters kept out of visual contact. The recently released advance man guidelines show how formalized this is.

Remember that Saddam was in a similar situation. He was told complete baloney by his staff because they were afraid of being shot if they didn't support his fantasies. This pandering to a leader's illusions is not new, it was also true in the case of Stalin and then there was the famous Lt. Kije, the imaginary war hero that the Czar believed in (this was fiction, but barely).

So was Bush "aware" of the dissolution of the Iraqi army? Did he know what he wrote to Bremer (or rather what he signed)? To be a liar one has to be aware of what the truth is and be intent on deliberately distorting it. If one lives in a dream world one can't be a liar, just deluded and ill informed.

Cheney, of course, is a sociopath. These people don't know truth from falsity or right from wrong. Whatever advances their objective of the moment is worth saying. If it is necessary to say the opposite tomorrow then that's what will be done. The truth is not a concept that they understand.

[James Killus]

What robertdfeinman is describing is the SNAFU Principle, which asserts that bad information flows upwards in organizations because those telling pleasing lies are rewarded while those telling unpleasant truths are punished. Obviuously, the style of those at the top matters here, and this administration's style is almost guaranteed to result in total fiction being delivered to the top.

However, the first thing mentioned by robertdfeinman may be of equal importance. It is worth noting that Elvis, who did not drink because he considered it "sinful," developed an addiction to multiple prescription drugs because doctors prescribed them, and if a doctor says it's okay, it must be okay, right? Moreover, doctors are authority figures, but "doctor shopping" is almost trivial for those in positions of power (e.g. our boy Rush).

I've noticed some changes in Bush's gait and movements over the past few years that look to my (non-clinical but nevertheless experienced) eye like the effects of diazepams. There are so many anti-depressants that it's hard to judge, but I wouldn't be surprised one bit if Bush were riding Prozac or Zoloft.

Speculative, certainly, but the man certainly has a history of alcohol and drug abuse, which certainly have more effects on mental processing than secretive daliances with female interns, just to pull a hypothetical out of thin air.

[Noni Mausa]

thanks James -- I've wondered about this for some time also. Isn't it ironic that you can't drive a car or fly a plane with a couple of ounces of ethanol in your bloodstream, but there is no one monitoring the bloodstream of a guy "flying" a 2000 x 6000 mile nation with 300 million passengers?

Every year I listen with some interest to the report of the doctor who does the president's annual medical. I'd certainly like to see random drug testing and other psychological testing added to the mix. I like your suggestion that he might be using Zoloft or Prozac -- my guess for quite some time had included something like a lobotomy being involved.. Your guess is more likely and more charitable.

The concealed "good news" if this is the case, is that it offers a plausible out for the next administration. If Bush is revealed to have been using drugs or to have been mentally unstable during his administration, this might allow the next administration to get out of the nasty corner they've been painted into by saying, "it was only a dream!".(That is, Bush's dream). Like a game of snakes and ladders, this might allow the next administration to rebuild their credit with the rest of the world more quickly than if they try to pretend that the Bush administration actually planned and understood what they were doing.

This would include the President of Vice also -- kind of a two-for-one deal.

Noni

[robertdfeinman]

Ronald Reagan had Alzheimer's when in office and there is still no acknowledgment of this decades after his term ended. Considering that the Bush library is going to be mostly off limits to researchers the chances that the truth about his mental condition will come out seems doubtful.

On the other hand someone may pull a "Bremer" and reveal something out of pique.

[RW]

I remain among those who think Bush and Cheney are probably clinically sane but sociopathic personalities; men used to power and not burdened with the kind of human baggage that supports empathy or any moral sense independent of personal risk calculation, the chance not just of being caught but the chance that being caught will become a serious problem. Drug-taking would likely survive that analysis but I do not believe it illuminates the heart of the matter.

Every once in a while I surf over to the article by E.L. Doctorow, "The Unfeeling President" published in the Fall of 2004 (available at http://tinyurl.com/4w82u), just to remind myself that the recognition of horror is not news:

"...this president does not know what death is. He hasn't the mind for it. You see him joking with the press, peering under the table for the weapons of mass destruction he can't seem to find, you see him at rallies strutting up to the stage in shirt sleeves to the roar of the carefully screened crowd, smiling and waving, triumphal, a he-man.

He does not mourn. He doesn't understand why he should mourn. He is satisfied during the course of a speech written for him to look solemn for a moment and speak of the brave young Americans who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.

But you study him, you look into his eyes and know he dissembles an emotion which he does not feel in the depths of his being because he has no capacity for it."

Forgiving Bush and Cheney would have no meaning to them or to me; Bush once mocked the plea of a condemned woman while denying her clemency prior to execution and if he is revealed to be addicted to some drug or other at some later date there is no inherent reason this fact should alter our assessment of his character or lack thereof.

What I personally struggle with is a way to forgive or, perhaps even more critically, continue to work with fellow citizens who supported and enabled these empty monsters and their reign of terror. Any history that does not reveal this truth, that attempts to gloss a terrible series of national mistakes, must be actively repudiated and resisted; it would only compound the tragedy to allow no lessons to be learned.

[spencer]

Typical George Bush -- for him loyalty only runs up, he has no idea that it also runs down.

[anne]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-surge4sep04,0,3922247,print.story?coll=la-home-center

September 4, 2007

Troop Buildup Fails to Reconcile Iraq: Baghdad's neighborhoods continue to split along sectarian lines, violence shifts elsewhere and infighting stalls political progress.
By Tina Susman - Los Angeles Times

BAGHDAD

According to U.S. military figures, an average of 1,000 Iraqis have died each month since March in sectarian violence. That compares with about 1,200 a month at the start of the security plan, the military said in an e-mailed response to queries. This does not include deaths from car bombings, which the military said have numbered more than 2,600 this year.

Figures from Iraqi government ministries point to far higher casualty numbers and show that this year, an average of 1,724 civilians a month have died in sectarian attacks, bombings and other war-related violence.

In February, the civilian death toll was 1,646. Last month, it was 1,773, according to numbers from officials in the ministries of Defense, Interior and Health, who cite morgue, hospital and police reports. It was the second straight month that casualties have increased since the security plan began....

[James Killus]

RW, the only real difference between drug-influenced behavior and other sorts is that it's possible to stop taking the drugs.

In Bush's case (I'll toss in the fact that Cheney is an alcoholic, his behavior in the shooting incident makes that pretty obvious), I doubt that ceasing to use the drugs would improve him much; what we know of him looks like a narcissistic sadist, which is about as unpleasant a combination there is. It's entirely possible that he's a nicer guy when drugged. I've known quite a few who were like that.

Also, just to head off the comments that are being formulated about how all this is "pop psychology" and "arm chair psychiatry," big deal. These guys have been accusing their fellow Americans of being traitors and labeling other country's leaders as madmen for decades. Tit for tat, and ganders also get sauced.

[Oupoot]

GWB has most likely never had to take responsibility for his own actions, so how could you expect him to do it now.

Personally, if I were in a combat situation, I would not like to have GWB as the man next to me. Most likely he will not know what to do - he may be as likely to shoot me as the enemy shooting at us. He may be too scared to act, requiring me to do all the work. He will not make decisions if their is great personal risk involved for him, even if it means the rest of us will be saved. It will be up to the others in the group to get us out. Whoever dies will probably be his heroes, but those that survive will be dismissed/ruined as they will be able to tell the world what really happened if they weren't able to be bribe.

It is strange how people could trust him to lead a whole country.