Expect this story to dominate the airwaves this weekend. You've got all - and I do mean ALL - of the most important neo-cons going on the record together to call this war and this president a disaster. Here's a small sample:
Kenneth Adelman: "The problem here is not a selling job. The problem is a performance job.… Rumsfeld has said that the war could never be lost in Iraq, it could only be lost in Washington. I don't think that's true at all. We're losing in Iraq.… I've worked with [Rumsfeld] three times in my life. I've been to each of his houses, in Chicago, Taos, Santa Fe, Santo Domingo, and Las Vegas. I'm very, very fond of him, but I'm crushed by his performance. Did he change, or were we wrong in the past? Or is it that he was never really challenged before? I don't know. He certainly fooled me."
Richard Perle: "In the administration that I served [Perle was an assistant secretary of defense under Ronald Reagan], there was a one-sentence description of the decision-making process when consensus could not be reached among disputatious departments: 'The president makes the decision.' [Bush] did not make decisions, in part because the machinery of government that he nominally ran was actually running him. The National Security Council was not serving [Bush] properly. He regarded [then National-Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice] as part of the family."
This is my personal favorite...
David Frum: "I always believed as a speechwriter that if you could persuade the president to commit himself to certain words, he would feel himself committed to the ideas that underlay those words. And the big shock to me has been that although the president said the words, he just did not absorb the ideas. And that is the root of, maybe, everything."
Frum is admitting here that he thought Bush was simply an empty vessel that could be filled with his brilliant ideas. What a wonderful vision of presidential leadership. It's all just words on a piece of paper.
But seriously, I can't wait to see how the right wing takes this. These are the men who led the charge. They make regular hawks look like doves. And they are trying to put the blame squarely on the president himself.
You would think this administration was about to redefine the meaning of the term "lame duck," but for this:
Cheney said that even with pollsters predicting Democrats will likely make gains in both houses of Congress on Tuesday, voter sentiment would not influence Bush's Iraq policy."It may not be popular with the public — it doesn't matter in the sense that we have to continue the mission and do what we think is right. And that's exactly what we're doing," Cheney said. "We're not running for office. We're doing what we think is right."
It took Goldwater going to Nixon to make that madness end. What will it take this time around?
UPDATE: Check out Cheney's reaction on ABCNews. Others have said it before me, but yes... "Shellshocked" is the right way to describe his reaction. He recovers quickly, but for a few moments there, he didn't quite know what to say. Too bad George didn't push on with a few more quotes, no?
UPDATE II: Kevin Drum has an excellent take on how this piece is part of an effort to rehabilitate neo-conservatism by laying the blame for its failures elsewhere. That's certainly true, and I wholeheartedly agree with his assertion that we make sure that not be allowed to happen. But based on the original Vanity Fair article itself, I think its very clear that even the neo-cons themselves don't believe that is going to happen. Key quote:
Fearing that worse is still to come, Adelman believes that neoconservatism itself—what he defines as "the idea of a tough foreign policy on behalf of morality, the idea of using our power for moral good in the world"—is dead, at least for a generation. After Iraq, he says, "it's not going to sell."
I'm all for making sure that they take their fair share of the blame for peddling such ludicrous ideas. But worry about them resurrecting themselves for a rerun? Once we retake the White House, that's never gonna happen. Between now and then, however....
UPDATE III: Looks like Ahmad Chalabi, the neo-cons' Iraqi collaborator, is turning on his former benefactors:
So, Ahmad Chalabi, what went wrong in Iraq in the war you helped to sell? “The Americans sold us out,” he tells longtime Baghdad reporter Dexter Filkins in a lengthy cover story in this coming Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, reviewed by E&P.
Chalabi was the Iraqi exile who worked -- via everyone from Paul Wolfowitz to Judith Miller -- to convince America to topple Saddam in 2003 (not that many in the administration needed much convincing).Now, in an interview in his London home, Chalabi, betraying what Filkins calls “a touch of bitterness,” declares, “The real culprit in all this is Wolfowitz,” the former assistant secretary of defense, whom he still considers a friend. “They chickened out. The Pentagon guys chickened out…The Americans screwed it up.”
But that’s not because they did too little but, rather, too much. Chalabi thinks the U.S. should have exited quickly and turned things over to Iraqis, such as himself and Moktada al-Sadr. “It was a puppet show!" he says referring to the occupation. “The worst of all worlds. We were in charge, and we had no power.”
He adds: “America betrays its friends. It sets them up and betrays them. I’d rather be America’s enemy.”
The massive article is titled "Where Plan 'A' Left Ahmad Chalabi." It ranges from the present day in London – where Chalabi still carries himself “like a monarch” despite the utter rejection by Iraqi voters earlier this year – to Filkins’ travels with him in 2005, including a visit to Iran.
One of the fascinating anecdotes revolves around the May 20,2004 raid by Iraqi and American forces on Chalabi’s Baghdad compound, after the U.S. accused him of giving secrets to the Iranians. “Look, I think they tried to kill him,” Richard Perle, the Pentagon adviser and close Chalabi friend, tells Filkins. “I think the raid on his house was intended to result in violence….It is a miracle that it didn’t result in a massive shootout.”
Filkins returns later to speculation that it was at the behest of the Iranians that Chalabi got the U.S. into the war. Perle refutes this.
What about the WMD propaganda? Chalabi counters views that he was the catalyst, saying that it was Bush officials who “came to us and asked, ‘Can you help us find something on Saddam?’”
He also claims that he warned the Bush people that various Iraqi informants were unreliable, only to hear the Americans say, referring to the source, “This guy is the mother lode.” Chalabi, of all people asks, “Can you believe that on such a basis the United States would go to war?
Chalabi has nothing to say about his leaks to Judith Miller of The New York Times, but Filkins does recall her famous email from 2003 when she boasted that Chalabi had “provided most of the front-apge exclusives on WMD to our paper.”
David Kay, the weapons inspector, weighs in on Wolfowitz: “He was a true believer. He thought he had the evidence. That came from the defectors. They came from Chalabi.”
Filkins concludes: “The gamble failed, a nation imploded and Chalabi never ascended to the throne he so coveted. But in an odd turn of fortune, the throne no longer had anything to offer.”
Look for a full-length story in tomorrow's TImes Magazine.
and yes, expect the right wing to go into full-on "they're trying to influence the election" hysterics. Because, of course, information that might help voters make up their minds should never, ever be presented before an election. Or something...
UPDATE IV: David Frum claims there's nothing new to see in the Vanity Fair piece. And worse, that he has no reason whatsoever to show remorse. Take a look.
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