With Bush, the buck stops way out there

WASHINGTON -- The spirit that characterized the successful Truman presidency has long been encoded in the simple phrase & quot;The Buck Stops Here. & quot; President Harry had it right in the middle of his office, where no one could mistake his mood or what he meant.
Most Americans probably have a general -- and correct -- idea about the meaning of the phrase, which was that Harry Truman was not only the ultimate decision-maker of the American people but also the ultimate blame-taker. They might not know that the word & quot;buck & quot; meant an object in poker that was put in front of the next player to deal. That's where the buck stopped, no matter the game.
Given the historical popularity among Americans about Harry's little sign, it is not unfair, when you look at the Bush administration today, to realize that not only does the buck not stop in the Oval Office, but that it stops way, way out there.
Prison-abuse scandal
Americans involved in the most heinous and sexually perverted torture of Iraqis in Baghdad? The buck went into a virtual tailspin; like a tornado, it whirled around the Oval Office, through the secretive lair of the secretary of defense, across the hoary offices of the U.S. Joint Chiefs -- and then landed in the lap of Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top commander in Iraq, who was suddenly replaced in what was deceptively described as a & quot;normal rotation. & quot;
The use of snarling dogs to terrify Iraqis -- 90 percent of whom were by all accounts innocents picked up off the street -- and get them to confess to almost anything? Why, bring in Iraq Army Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, the commander of & quot;Gitmo, & quot; or the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba. He's the one who, again by all accounts, dreamt up the canine treatment for dog-fearing Muslims. At this point, it becomes increasingly difficult to figure who is actually going to lead the game.
President Bush's speech the other night did not clarify things all that much, either. He spoke of & quot;absolute sovereignty & quot; and & quot;full sovereignty & quot; for the Iraqi people after June 30. Apparently, he would have us believe that & quot;the buck & quot; is really about to be transferred to Baghdad from the super-secretive Pentagon civilians around Donald Rumsfeld, rather like passing a mace from monarch to monarch in olden times to embody the passing of power. (Will they perhaps carry the buck aboard a troop plane, or by caravan across the desert from Jordan to Baghdad? Will the country's new & quot;president & quot; place it prominently in his & quot;sovereign & quot; office, as did our Harry?)
But as analyst Zbigniew Brzezinski asks: & quot;How can the Iraqi government have 'full sovereignty' with an American proconsul in a fortress in Baghdad and our military in charge? How long do we stay, and with what intent? With this language, we are again undermining the credibility upon which we depend. The most we can ask is a modern, reasonably stable Iraq that will not escalate into a 'national liberation struggle' against us.
& quot;Using this Aesopian language is perhaps good for those converted in the U.S., but not for the international community. & quot;
Deceptive language
So the buck does not stop with language, either. In fact, the language of this administration, especially among the authors of this war, such as Pentagon civilians Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith and Richard Perle, has become almost Soviet-like in the repetition of its obvious untruths and in its clear intent to deceive, or at least now mollify, the American people.
There are finally signs that the president has absorbed the fact that the Iraq war will go down in history as his big, reckless adventure. But he still does not seem to understand the severity of our breaks with the rest of the world.
At least he does say that he went into Iraq & quot;to make men free, not to make Americans of the Iraqis. & quot; That, along with his present incongruous reliance on the United Nations, shows the degree to which he, if not the & quot;converted & quot; radicals around him, has accepted half-measures -- in place of saving the world, he is now deeply into saving himself.
In the end, the buck will, of course, have to stop with him. History will demand it, and perhaps George W. Bush is getting to know that, too. If he does not, then it will be up to the American people.
Universal Press Syndicate