HOW HE SEES IT Bush didn't prepare us for reality of Iraq war

By ISSAC J. BAILEY
KNIGHT RIDDER
The Bush administration's biggest failing -- despite what the unrest in Iraq might suggest -- came in the months leading up to war. And now the control of the former dictatorship has been handed to a fledgling Iraqi-led government hoping for democracy.
I pray the Bush administration didn't fail with the Iraqis where it failed with us. Before the war, the Bush administration didn't ring the bells loud enough that in every war -- righteous or wrong -- innocent people die. Little children are maimed. Too many loved ones come home in body bags.
Death, destruction
They didn't teach us that even the best plans go awry when dealing in death and destruction. They didn't remind us there would be setbacks and triumphs and days we'd feel victorious and nights we'd feel defeated. And that there would be days we'd doubt why we even tried.
They did a poor job of preparing us for reality and instead tried only to convince us of the rightness of our position, a mistake they continue to make by refusing to make public photos of flag-draped coffins filled with the bodies of Americans.
They didn't point out that in this kind of war, rightness or wrongness may not reveal itself in this lifetime or the next. They didn't shout loudly enough that it would be almost impossible to prove our position -- that Iraq under Saddam Hussein was a threat to our peace and the world.
That's the problem with pre-emption. Because effective pre-emption prevents the worst-case scenario from visiting itself upon us while simultaneously robbing us of the evidence needed to convince the world that our motives are pure.
The Sept. 11 commission already has taught us that, told us we tried too much diplomacy and weren't aggressive enough with the terrorists. But it's the 3,000 dead -- not the wisdom of a bipartisan panel -- that make such a conclusion irrefutable.
The Bush administration didn't convince us that intelligence gathering more closely resembles the ambiguity of psychology rather than the exactness of chemistry, or that the president of Russia warned of Iraqi plans to attack the United States, or that Al-Qaida had contacted Saddam Hussein, though unsuccessfully, hoping to build an alliance.
The Bush administration's biggest failing before the war was that it spent too much time trying to build public support instead of steeling the public's resolve.
X Issac J. Bailey is a columnist for the Myrtle Beach, S.C., Sun News. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune.