The lies and exaggerations of George W. Bush

By Michael J.W. Stickings

President Bush is set to address the nation, and the world, in just over half an hour. Topic: Iraq.

What will he say? The Politico has excerpts of his speech -- "as released by the White House for use on dinnertime newscasts" -- which means we can all start ripping it to shreds, as it deserves, well in advance of the actual event. This also saves us from the annoyance and simultaneous anger of having to sit through, and pay close attention to, yet another presentation, however inept, of this president's self-righteous delusion.

Some key points:

1) Once more, as if nothing has been learned, the war in Iraq will be linked to the war on terror. They are, in Bush's view, or at least according to the spin, one and the same: "Terrorists and extremists who are at war with us around the world are seeking to topple Iraq’s government, dominate the region, and attack us here at home." It is true that al Qaeda is operating in Iraq, but that version of al Qaeda is not the only opponent of the U.S. war and occupation and was not operational in Iraq before the war. Al Qaeda existed before the war, but this al Qaeda didn't. And it is not the case that the objectives of the terrorists and extremists in Iraq are the same as those of terrorists and extremists elsewhere. I'm sure the latter are happy to have the U.S. bogged down in a lost war in the Middle East while they plot further activity.

2) The Surge is working: "our success in meeting these objectives" -- namely, providing security -- "now allows us to begin bringing some of our troops home." To be fair, there has been some success -- but no one really doubted that there would at least be some success. There has been success in Anbar, for example, where the U.S. has allied itself with Sunnis, formerly of the insurgency in some cases, against al Qaeda. But how long will that delicate arrangement of coinciding self-interest last? Similarly, some neighbourhoods in Baghdad may be safer than they were before the Surge -- although the casualty rates for the city, as for the country as a whole, remain extraordinarily high. Again, though, how long will that that last?

Furthermore, as Slate's Fred Kaplan pointed out the other day (and has pointed out repeatedly, not that the mainstream news media pay attention to such things, so gullible they remain, so beholden to talking points), "the U.S. Army and Marines [will] run out of deployable troops" in April of next year. Bush will argue that some troops will come home because of the success, but the truth is that troops have to come home no matter what. The Surge will not end because it has been, or by then will have been, successful, it will end because there just aren't any more troops to keep it going. Bush will lie about the Surge's success, or at least will exaggerate what successes there have been, but he will also lie about why some of the troops will be coming home.

3) Consider this idiotic statement: "Americans want our country to be safe, and our troops to begin coming home from Iraq. Yet those of us who believe success in Iraq is essential to our security, and those who believe we should bring our troops home, have been at odds. Now, because of the measure of success we are seeing in Iraq, we can begin seeing troops come home." First, "success in Iraq," whatever that even means (it keeps changing, with the bar being continually lowered as realities on the ground contradict the warmongers' faulty plans and rosy predictions), is not essential to U.S. security. Yes, the U.S. and local allies are fighting al Qaeda in some parts of Iraq, but a U.S. withdrawal would not necessarily unleash that version of al Qaeda on American interests. Al Qaeda in Iraq could merge with al Qaeda elsewhere, but al Qaeda is operational, and a threat to U.S. security, regardless of the fortunes of al Qaeda in Iraq. Besides, it is probably better for al Qaeda to have the U.S. spending so much of its military and political capital fighting its offshoot in Iraq.

Bush's argument is also unfair. On one side he puts those who care about U.S. security, while on the other he puts those who want the troops to come home. Which is to say, those who want the troops to come home do not care about U.S. security. But the Iraq War and Occupation has actually weakened U.S. security by overstretching the military, exacerbating instability in the heart of the Middle East, straining relations with allies, alienating and antagonizing the Muslim world, boosting the cause of al Qaeda and of like-minded terrorists generally, and turning U.S. attention away from the more serious threats elsewhere. What's more, the Iraq War is not a war against terrorists but a war of occupation in the middle of a sectarian civil war. Bush, as always, wants to blame others for what has gone wrong, or for what could go wrong, but he has only himself -- and those around him, those who have waged and supported this war -- to blame.

Just wait, though: more and more blame will be directed at the Iraqis themselves. It will be their fault -- along with the fault of the war's opponents at home, Bush's political opponents -- that the war wasn't a success. Eventually, the U.S. will withdraw to troop levels well below those of the pre-surge period and Iraq will be left much as it is now, a mess with pockets of temporary, periodic success. And Bush and the warmongers will

4) And consider this one: "Whatever political party you belong to, whatever your position on Iraq, we should be able to agree that America has a vital interest in preventing chaos and providing hope in the Middle East. We should be able to agree that we must defeat Al Qaeda, counter Iran, help the Afghan government, work for peace in the Holy Land and strengthen our military so we can prevail in the struggle against terrorists and extremists." Yes, that's true, the U.S. does have "a vital interest in preventing chaos and providing hope in the Middle East," but the U.S. war and occupation has not prevented chaos and not provided hope -- in fact, it has done the reverse: so much chaos, so little hope. And the question is not about agreement on the points Bush lists but about how to achieve those goals: How do you defeat al Qaeda? How do you deal with Iran? How do you help Kabul? On these points, Bush, the Bush agenda, has been wrong, wrong, and wrong.

So what is Bush going to do? To support Petraeus, of course, to do what Petraeus has recommended, which is to continue the Surge until it is no longer possible to sustain it. On this, Bush and Petraeus are of the same mind -- the partisan Petraeus, who has expressed interest in running for president, whose political future has been talked up by Krazy Kristol and others on the right. How could they not be of the same mind?

One final point here: Bush seems to believe -- that is, he is making the case, whether he believes it or not -- that the Iraq War is the central theater of the larger war to defend America and defeat America's new Enemy, the monolith of Islamic Terrorism. To drive that point home, he drew it all back to 9/11, again, as he and those on his side so often have: If the Enemy is not defeated in Iraq, it will strike again, there will be another 9/11, or worse -- that is the message, in essence, his argument in support of the Iraq War and Occupation. It is, to repeat, a flawed argument, but it is the argument we will keep hearing from those who find themselves on the wrong side of reality.

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UPDATE (9.43 pm): It's over. There will be a lot of reaction to Bush's address -- on television, in newspapers, on the radio, in the blogosphere, from candidates, experts, pundits, and anyone and everyone with an opinion -- but what more is there to say, what hasn't already been said? Thankfully, the Democrats are hitting back -- Obama was quite eloquent just now on Larry King -- and they need to direct the media's fickle and short-sighted attention to Bush's lies and exaggerations, to the truth behind the talking points and happy talk.

CNN has a recap.

I'll have more later.

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UPDATE (11:19 pm): USA Today's Mike Carney has reaction from leading Democrats and Republicans.

Here's Ted Kennedy: "It’s clear that President Bush intends to drag this process out month after month, year after year, so that he can hand his Iraqi policy off to the next President. We have to change our policy now. Until we do, our troops will continue shedding blood in the streets of Baghdad and our national security will remain at risk."

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UPDATE (11:24 pm): Joe Gandelman has a great round-up over at The Moderate Voice. (I've cross-posted this post there -- see here.)

Via Joe -- Make sure to read Andrew Sullivan's masterful response to Bush's address. Here's a key passage:

He seemed almost broken to me. His voice raspy, his eyes watery, his affect exhausted, his facial expression almost bewildered. I thought I would feel angry; but I found myself verging toward pity. The case was so weak, the argument so thin, the evidence for optimism so obviously strained that one wondered whom he thought he was persuading. And the way he framed his case was still divorced from the reality we see in front of our nose: that Iraq is not, as he still seems to believe, full of ordinary people longing for democracy and somehow stymied solely by "extremists" or al Qaeda or Iran, but a country full of groups of people who cannot trust one another, who are still living in the wake of unimaginable totalitarian trauma, who have murdered and tortured and butchered each other in pursuit of religious and ethnic pride and honor for centuries. This is what Bush cannot recognize: there is no Iraq. There are no Iraqis. There may have been at one point -- but what tiny patina of national unity that once existed to counter primordial sectarian loyalty was blown away by the anarchy of the Rumsfeld-Franks invasion. The president's stunning detachment from this reality tragically endures -- whether out of cynicism or delusion or, more worryingly, a simple intellectual inability to understand the country he is determined that the United States occupy for the rest of our lives.

Brilliant. And exactly right.