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Ducking Responsibility |
Current rating: 0 |
by Ruth Rosen
(No verified email address) |
22 Apr 2004
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Instead of working with the international community to eliminate the al Qaeda threat, and reconstruct Afghanistan, Bush hijacked a national tragedy so that he could topple Hussein and install a government that would assure the United States of a Mideast base and access to Iraq's oil. |
FOR DECADES, conservative Republicans have hectored single mothers on welfare, sexually active teenagers and disadvantaged minorities to stop blaming others and to take responsibility for their own lives.
I agree that we should take responsibility for our actions. So how come top Bush officials have refused to take responsibility for what they have or have not done?
During her evasive testimony before the Sept. 11 commission, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice sounded like a stereotypical liberal as she repeatedly blamed "structural" problems (rather than actual people) for intelligence failures. She also described the Aug. 6, 2001, "Presidential Daily Briefing," or PDB, as "historical information based on old reporting. There was no new threat information."
Excuse me, but the title alone -- "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U. S." -- should have sent shock waves through her office. The intelligence community does not give morning "history backgrounders" to the president. This particular memo, in fact, contained specific information about active threats. Yet, according to Rice, there was nothing more she could have done to prevent the terrorist attacks.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, another member of this responsibility- phobic administration, said that no one could have predicted that the war in Iraq would turn into such a dangerous occupation. Oh, really? Former Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric K. Shinseki told Rumsfeld that he needed several hundreds of thousands more troops. He was then sent into retirement.
Now, Rumsfeld says he is surprised about "the way it happens to be today. " To which Marine Corps Gen. Anthony Zinni, the former commander of the U.S. Central Command, responds, "Anyone could know the problem they were going to see. How could they not?"
Rice and Rumsfeld are guilty of gross incompetence and should resign.
Then there is President Bush, whose recent press conference demonstrated his tortured relationship with reality. "The PDB was no indication of a terrorist threat," he said.
Just what doesn't he understand about, "determined to strike"? That memo should have sent the president flying back to the capital to put the nation on a "war footing." But this is a president who is so detached from the job that he has spent 40 percent of his time in office either at Camp David, Md., at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, or the Bush family retreat in Kennebunkport, Maine.
Bush didn't need to apologize to the nation, but he should have been willing to admit that everyone, including the president, can always do more, even if we eventually fail.
Asked if he had made any recent mistakes, the president couldn't even summon up one of his most serious blunders:
-- His determination to wage war in Iraq has left Afghanistan a failed nation, propped up by the sale of opium poppies and ruled by rival warlords.
-- His rush to end the U.N. weapons inspections, coupled with his "conviction" that Iraq had WMDs, resulted in few plans for a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq.
-- His unilateralism and policy of pre-emptive war have alienated our traditional allies and inflamed much of the Islamic world.
No one can truly know if the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks could have been prevented. Even the most attentive administration, less fixated on tax cuts, missile defense and Iraq, could have failed to connect all the dots.
It's what happened after Sept. 11 that demonstrates this administration's incompetence.
As former Treasury Secretary Paul O' Neill, former counterterrorism coordinator Richard Clarke and now Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward, in his new book, "Plan of Attack," have all confirmed, Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney had their eyes on Iraq since they took office in 2001.
Instead of working with the international community to eliminate the al Qaeda threat, and reconstruct Afghanistan, Bush hijacked a national tragedy so that he could topple Hussein and install a government that would assure the United States of a Mideast base and access to Iraq's oil.
Whether or not you support the president or the war, it is hard to argue that Bush has demonstrated competence as a chief executive in pursuing these goals.
Bush is also guilty of breathtaking arrogance. Here is a man who shirked his own military responsibility, swaggered as he played a hero in a flight suit and then told the enemy, with adolescent bravado, to "bring it on." Yet this is a man who is too insecure to admit he could have done more and too timid to face the Sept. 11 commission without Cheney at his side.
Bush's deceptions and betrayal of the public trust after Sept. 11 may or may not constitute impeachable crimes. But he has certainly forfeited the right to govern our nation.
November can't come soon enough.
©2004 San Francisco Chronicle
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