Fables of the Reconstruction

Two articles today remind us that all this talk about memoes, military services, and Vietnam are clouding the real issues: It's Iraq stupid! And most particularly what we've not been hearing about Iraq that we should've been.

In this sobering New York Times piece, we learn that waaaay back in July, Bush received a much more important memo than the ones Dan Rather's been blathering on about. This classified National Intelligence Estimate from the CIA detailed just how badly things are going in Iraq:

The estimate outlines three possibilities for Iraq through the end of 2005, with the worst case being developments that could lead to civil war, the officials said. The most favorable outcome described is an Iraq whose stability would remain tenuous in political, economic and security terms.

Huh. This is what Bush has been telling us for the last few months. Not what he's told us at the Republican National Convention. Not what he's saying in his stump speech.

People talk about Bush and company lying about WMD in Iraq. Well, I'm willing to believe they could have been mistaken--mistaken in the same way Dan Rather was about those memoes--mistaken because they desperately wanted it to be so, but mistaken nonetheless. But on this subject, the subject of success in Iraq, well, looks like they've been lying to us.

It's important to realize that this briefing wasn't written this week. As the NYT's Douglas Jehl notes, the briefings "pessimistic conclusions were reached even before the recent worsening of the security situation in Iraq, which has included a sharp increase in attacks on American troops and in deaths of Iraqi civilians as well as resistance fighters."

Joe Biden's assessment was gloomy:

The president has frequently described Iraq as, quote, "the central front of the war on terror." Well by that definition, success in Iraq is a key standard by which to measure the war on terror. And by that measure, I think the war on terror is in trouble.

Then let's click over to Sid Blumenthal's piece in The Guardian, entitled "Far graver than Vietnam," wherein he claims that many of our leading military strategists and retired generals believe the administration's exercise in Iraq is already a failure.

Some select quotes:

Retired general William Odom, former head of the National Security Agency:

Bush hasn't found the WMD. Al-Qaida, it's worse, he's lost on that front. That he's going to achieve a democracy there? That goal is lost, too. It's lost. ... Right now, the course we're on, we're achieving Bin Laden's ends. ...

This is far graver than Vietnam. There wasn't as much at stake strategically, though in both cases we mindlessly went ahead with the war that was not constructive for US aims. But now we're in a region far more volatile, and we're in much worse shape with our allies.

Jeffrey Record, professor of strategy at the Air War College:

I see no ray of light on the horizon at all. The worst case has become true. There's no analogy whatsoever between the situation in Iraq and the advantages we had after the second world war in Germany and Japan."

Is it possible Blumenthal's been selective in quoting the experts he has? Of course. But the quotes (and there are many more in his article) seem to reflect what's showing up in that CIA report, too.

Elections in Iraq come January? Riiiight.