Bush shifts blame for Iraq

WASHINGTON -- No one in the Bush administration, including the commander in chief, seems willing to accept responsibility for what has become more and more apparent: There simply weren't enough U.S. forces in Iraq to ensure the peace once Saddam Hussein's army was vanquished.
Moreover, current reconstruction continues to be hamstrung by inadequate security as the provisional Iraqi government heads for crucial elections in January. It would be extremely difficult to conduct any meaningful democratic process amid the constant insurgent attacks on coalition forces, inadequately trained Iraqi troops and civilian population.
If there was any doubt about that, it was dispelled when Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi told the interim National Assembly in Baghdad that he is increasingly concerned that insurgents could effectively thwart the country's will to establish a viable permanent government.
Now even Paul Bremer, whom President Bush sent to Iraq to oversee initial rebuilding of the country and creation of Iraqi self-government, says that he had cautioned the White House there weren't enough troops to ensure relatively quick success -- repeating the mantra of any number of military experts nearly from the first of the invasion. The most prominent of these, of course, was Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki, who was forced into retirement after publicly disagreeing with the Pentagon and warning that securing the peace would require several hundred thousand troops.
Nip-and-tuck campaign
Bremer's remarks easily could be interpreted as an effort to disassociate himself from any of the responsibility for what has gone wrong, a position not unlike that being taken by others involved in the process. Coming as they did in the midst of a nip-and-tuck presidential campaign, Bremer's statements understandably infuriated the White House, which challenged them. Bremer himself rephrased his remarks. However, the administration also seems to be assigning the blame elsewhere.
The standard administration reply to such criticism is to shift responsibility to military commanders in the field, who, the president and his aides argue, were told that the troop strength was strictly up to them. Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, said that Bush's instructions to his commanders about more troops were "just let me know, you'll have them." Vice President Cheney, in his debate with Sen. John Edwards, echoed that position, stating that the president left those military details to those in charge on the ground.
That's all well and good. But two factors undercut this defense.
First, after what happened to Shinseki, few commanders seemed willing to risk the wrath of the Pentagon's civilian leaders by disagreeing with the initial strategy -- now obviously flawed -- that called for an open-armed welcome by the Iraqi populace, making huge numbers of troops unnecessary. The latter was a gross miscalculation of sentiment.
Second, the stubborn refusal to rectify the mistake has been encouraged by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's apparent position that this interferes with his efforts to overhaul the military generally, replacing the old, large Army concept with a smaller, swifter, more mobile approach. Rumsfeld and old-line Army strategists have been at odds over this since he came into office four years ago.
Challenge for Kerry
If the president can survive the continuing bad news in Iraq, it will be because his opponent, Sen. John Kerry, has failed to put forth a realistic solution. Kerry seized on Bremer's remarks as further evidence that Bush has mismanaged the war. But while he too says more troops are needed, he would bolster the numbers with aid from the United Nations and specifically from alleged allies like France and Germany, and through quicker training of Iraqi forces.
Well, good luck. There is not one shred of evidence that Kerry would be any more successful than the current administration in bringing about such an arrangement. German and French officials have shown no sign that they want anything to do with the situation, particularly since the war has stirred up increasing anti-Americanism among their own citizens.
X Dan K. Thomasson is former editor of the Scripps Howard News Service.