The War of the Imagination

Mark Danner has quite a long article entitled "The War of the Imagination" in the holiday issue of the NY Review of Books. As with most NYR articles it's more than a review of books by Woodward, Suskind and Risen; Danner expounds on his views of our Iraq debacle. Danner's thesis is, at this point, not original: our leaders' actions were based on how they wanted the world to be, rather than how it is. However, he does makes some interesting points.

One of the more interesting sections of the article is an excerpt from the formerly top-secret National Security Presidential Directive entitled "Iraq: Goals, Objectives and Strategy", which President Bush signed on August 29, 2002. Looked at 4+ years later, it does seem to have become a work of the imagination, rather than of reality.

Woodward reports on a startling meeting between Bush, Powell and Rice in which Powell tries to explain the problems inherent in having two chains of command - Garner and Franks - in Iraq, both reporting to the Pentagon, neither reporting to the White House. First, Bush and Rice don't believe him; then, after verifying it, they do nothing beyond acknowledging that Powell is correct but the discussion was "theoretical".

Chalabi, of course, has to be brought up. He was the Pentagon's 'silver bullet' for postwar running of Iraq. Bush vetoed him. But neither the Pentagon nor Bush suggested a Plan B, i.e., if Chalabi was not going to be the man, who was?

But, as you would expect, Danner (and the authors of the books reviewed) reserves his sharpest criticism for Bush and Cheney. Essentially, they knew what was right and didn't want to hear anything else. They were the 'deciders'. They did not need to hear what was happening in the world of reality. We and the Iraqis continue to pay the price for their arrogance and stupidity.