Post by goddessoflight on Sept 6, 2007 13:16:47 GMT -5
select.nytimes.com/2007/09/03/opinion/03krugmancolumn.html
By PAUL KRUGMAN
In February 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell,
addressing the United Nations Security Council, claimed
to have proof that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass
destruction. He did not, in fact, present any actual
evidence, just pictures of buildings with big arrows
pointing at them saying things like "Chemical Munitions
Bunker." But many people in the political and media
establishments swooned: they admired Mr. Powell, and
because he said it, they believed it.
Mr. Powell's masters got the war they wanted, and it
soon became apparent that none of his assertions had
been true.
Until recently I assumed that the failure to find
W.M.D., followed by years of false claims of progress
in Iraq, would make a repeat of the snow job that sold
the war impossible. But I was wrong. The
administration, this time relying on Gen. David
Petraeus to play the Colin Powell role, has had
remarkable success creating the perception that the
"surge" is succeeding, even though there's not a shred
of verifiable evidence to suggest that it is.
Thus Kenneth Pollack of the Brookings Institution --
the author of "The Threatening Storm: The Case for
Invading Iraq" -- and his colleague Michael O'Hanlon,
another longtime war booster, returned from a
Pentagon-guided tour of Iraq and declared that the
surge was working. They received enormous media
coverage; most of that coverage accepted their
ludicrous self-description as critics of the war who
have been convinced by new evidence.
A third participant in the same tour, Anthony Cordesman
of the Center for Strategic and International Studies,
reported that unlike his traveling companions, he saw
little change in the Iraq situation and "did not see
success for the strategy that President Bush announced
in January." But neither his dissent nor a courageous
rebuttal of Mr. O'Hanlon and Mr. Pollack by seven
soldiers actually serving in Iraq, published in The New
York Times, received much media attention.
Meanwhile, many news organizations have come out with
misleading reports suggesting a sharp drop in U.S.
casualties. The reality is that this year, as in
previous years, there have been month-to-month
fluctuations that tell us little: for example, July
2006 was a low-casualty month, with only 43 U.S.
military fatalities, but it was also a month in which
the Iraqi situation continued to deteriorate. And so
far, every month of 2007 has seen more U.S. military
fatalities than the same month in 2006.
What about civilian casualties? The Pentagon says
they're down, but it has neither released its numbers
nor explained how they're calculated. According to a
draft report from the Government Accountability Office,
which was leaked to the press because officials were
afraid the office would be pressured into changing the
report's conclusions, U.S. government agencies "differ"
on whether sectarian violence has been reduced. And
independent attempts by news agencies to estimate
civilian deaths from news reports, hospital records and
other sources have not found any significant decline.
Now, there are parts of Baghdad where civilian deaths
probably have fallen -- but that's not necessarily good
news. "Some military officers," reports Leila Fadel of
McClatchy, "believe that it may be an indication that
ethnic cleansing has been completed in many
neighborhoods and that there aren't as many people to
kill."
Above all, we should remember that the whole point of
the surge was to create space for political progress in
Iraq. And neither that leaked G.A.O. report nor the
recent National Intelligence Estimate found any
political progress worth mentioning. There has been no
hint of sectarian reconciliation, and the Iraqi
government, according to yet another leaked U.S.
government report, is completely riddled with
corruption.
But, say the usual suspects, General Petraeus is a
fine, upstanding officer who wouldn't participate in a
campaign of deception -- apparently forgetting that
they said the same thing about Mr. Powell.
First of all, General Petraeus is now identified with
the surge; if it fails, he fails. He has every
incentive to find a way to keep it going, in the hope
that somehow he can pull off something he can call
success.
And General Petraeus's history also suggests that he is
much more of a political, and indeed partisan, animal
than his press would have you believe. In particular,
six weeks before the 2004 presidential election,
General Petraeus published an op-ed article in The
Washington Post in which he claimed -- wrongly, of
course -- that there had been "tangible progress" in
Iraq, and that "momentum has gathered in recent
months."
Is it normal for serving military officers to publish
articles just before an election that clearly help an
incumbent's campaign? I don't think so.
So here we go again. It appears that many influential
people in this country have learned nothing from the
last five years. And those who cannot learn from
history are, indeed, doomed to repeat it.
_____________________________________________
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By PAUL KRUGMAN
In February 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell,
addressing the United Nations Security Council, claimed
to have proof that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass
destruction. He did not, in fact, present any actual
evidence, just pictures of buildings with big arrows
pointing at them saying things like "Chemical Munitions
Bunker." But many people in the political and media
establishments swooned: they admired Mr. Powell, and
because he said it, they believed it.
Mr. Powell's masters got the war they wanted, and it
soon became apparent that none of his assertions had
been true.
Until recently I assumed that the failure to find
W.M.D., followed by years of false claims of progress
in Iraq, would make a repeat of the snow job that sold
the war impossible. But I was wrong. The
administration, this time relying on Gen. David
Petraeus to play the Colin Powell role, has had
remarkable success creating the perception that the
"surge" is succeeding, even though there's not a shred
of verifiable evidence to suggest that it is.
Thus Kenneth Pollack of the Brookings Institution --
the author of "The Threatening Storm: The Case for
Invading Iraq" -- and his colleague Michael O'Hanlon,
another longtime war booster, returned from a
Pentagon-guided tour of Iraq and declared that the
surge was working. They received enormous media
coverage; most of that coverage accepted their
ludicrous self-description as critics of the war who
have been convinced by new evidence.
A third participant in the same tour, Anthony Cordesman
of the Center for Strategic and International Studies,
reported that unlike his traveling companions, he saw
little change in the Iraq situation and "did not see
success for the strategy that President Bush announced
in January." But neither his dissent nor a courageous
rebuttal of Mr. O'Hanlon and Mr. Pollack by seven
soldiers actually serving in Iraq, published in The New
York Times, received much media attention.
Meanwhile, many news organizations have come out with
misleading reports suggesting a sharp drop in U.S.
casualties. The reality is that this year, as in
previous years, there have been month-to-month
fluctuations that tell us little: for example, July
2006 was a low-casualty month, with only 43 U.S.
military fatalities, but it was also a month in which
the Iraqi situation continued to deteriorate. And so
far, every month of 2007 has seen more U.S. military
fatalities than the same month in 2006.
What about civilian casualties? The Pentagon says
they're down, but it has neither released its numbers
nor explained how they're calculated. According to a
draft report from the Government Accountability Office,
which was leaked to the press because officials were
afraid the office would be pressured into changing the
report's conclusions, U.S. government agencies "differ"
on whether sectarian violence has been reduced. And
independent attempts by news agencies to estimate
civilian deaths from news reports, hospital records and
other sources have not found any significant decline.
Now, there are parts of Baghdad where civilian deaths
probably have fallen -- but that's not necessarily good
news. "Some military officers," reports Leila Fadel of
McClatchy, "believe that it may be an indication that
ethnic cleansing has been completed in many
neighborhoods and that there aren't as many people to
kill."
Above all, we should remember that the whole point of
the surge was to create space for political progress in
Iraq. And neither that leaked G.A.O. report nor the
recent National Intelligence Estimate found any
political progress worth mentioning. There has been no
hint of sectarian reconciliation, and the Iraqi
government, according to yet another leaked U.S.
government report, is completely riddled with
corruption.
But, say the usual suspects, General Petraeus is a
fine, upstanding officer who wouldn't participate in a
campaign of deception -- apparently forgetting that
they said the same thing about Mr. Powell.
First of all, General Petraeus is now identified with
the surge; if it fails, he fails. He has every
incentive to find a way to keep it going, in the hope
that somehow he can pull off something he can call
success.
And General Petraeus's history also suggests that he is
much more of a political, and indeed partisan, animal
than his press would have you believe. In particular,
six weeks before the 2004 presidential election,
General Petraeus published an op-ed article in The
Washington Post in which he claimed -- wrongly, of
course -- that there had been "tangible progress" in
Iraq, and that "momentum has gathered in recent
months."
Is it normal for serving military officers to publish
articles just before an election that clearly help an
incumbent's campaign? I don't think so.
So here we go again. It appears that many influential
people in this country have learned nothing from the
last five years. And those who cannot learn from
history are, indeed, doomed to repeat it.
_____________________________________________
Portside aims to provide material of interest
to people on the left that will help them to
interpret the world and to change it.
Submit via email: moderator@portside.org
Submit via the Web: portside.org/submit
Frequently asked questions: portside.org/faq
Subscribe: portside.org/subscribe
Unsubscribe: portside.org/unsubscribe
Account assistance: portside.org/contact
Search the archives: portside.org/archive
