State of Denial

One advantage to a couple of good hernias is that they make you spend lots of time lounging around the house. For me, this means lots or reading and, lately, watching videos and even some TV.

One thing I finally did was read a book on the Bush administration. I hadn’t read any up to now because it seems like every week, some new catastrophe makes obsolete even the latest books in print. I routinely read the Oregonian, a reasonably good daily newspaper. I also read a lot of the Washington Post online. Most months, I enjoy a motorcycle trip over to Ashland and hit the bookstores for the magazines: favorites include The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and Harpers.

I consider myself rather well-informed.

But with all the extra lounge time on my hands, I picked up Bob Woodward’s State of Denial, and I have to say I found it scandalous. I’m not easily shocked by much that happens around Washington, and especially not by the Bush administration, but there’s a lot of depth that just doesn’t get covered in newspapers or magazines.

The biggest insight gained from Woodward was the total lack of planning for Iraq after we won the war. Despite warnings from individuals and agencies before the invasion, the administration really did seem to believe we’d be welcomed as liberators. They had zero plans for what to do if we were not. Is it possible to imagine a more colossal mistake?

Donald Rumsfeld comes across as the biggest villain in Woodward’s book, though the two biggest mistakes—short of the invasion itself—go to Paul Bremer. Bremer was Rumsfield’s man, and he replaced Lieutenant General Jay Garner as the head of postwar operations in Iraq. While Garner was still in Iraq, and over his strong objections, Bremer disbanded the Iraqi army and purged all Baathists from government positions.

The result of the first error was that tens of thousands of officers and enlisted men who would have stayed in place and eventually taken over security operations were sent home mad as hell at the Americans, not to mention still heavily armed. They quickly became the heart of the Sunni insurgency.

The result of the second error was that government services such as water, sewer systems, and electricity collapsed. The Interior Ministry, which controlled all these vital services, lost all of its upper and mid-level functionaries, and there was no one to take their place.

Also interesting in the Woodward book is that Colin Powell actually had two doctrines: the first is the well-known doctrine of overwhelming force, which was not followed in our invasion. The second is what Powell called the “pottery store rule: 'You break it, you own it.'”

There’s no question that we own Iraq now. We sure would love to give it back, but we’ll still be making payments long after my little blog has fallen silent.

Even if you know a lot about how we got into Iraq and how we lost it, Woodward’s book is a compelling read.