Pacific Views

Chairman GW Bush

Disclosure: Edited an earlier post to its pull out this topic for its own independent post.
GeeDubya says he gets his news from Condi and Andy Card. And he says that Condi gets her news directly from the people on the world stage:

But like Condoleezza, in her case, the national security adviser is getting her news directly from the participants on the world stage.

Perhaps Condi is getting her news from the Easter Bunny? Newsweek has this throw away comment in their article about "The Unbuilding of Iraq: How did we get into this mess?"

National-security adviser Rice hoped that other countries would provide an international constabulary force.

The military has a saying "Hope is not a plan". Did Condi forget to ask about the plans?

And while I am on this rant, I want to remind everyone that back in May, one of the senior officials the White House put into place to help rebuild Iraq had this to say about the planning (or lack thereof):

Restoring Services to Iraq Remains a Challenge: NPR Interview with Retired Lt Col Sam Gardiner

Linda Wertheimer, Weekend Edition
May 10, 2003

Lt Col Sam Gardiner was an advisor to the Bush White House on preparing for the humanitarian issues after a successful compaign in Iraq.

Q: Could this kind of thing been anticipated?

A: Umm, let me be honest. I briefed some people in the administration before the war. One of the officials said to me (a very high official), “We’ve already had an hour with the President on the humanitarian system. We’re done talking about that.” You see, if we had been prepared to deal with the humanitarian crisis, it would have delayed the war and as I detected, nobody was interested in that.

Hope is not a plan. And neither is relying on Condi and Andy Card for all your news. Perhaps we should be happy to see that the Bushies are so incompetent. Just think about how much they could screw up the world if they actually were capable of adjusting to reality.

More on Condi's competent handling of the Iraq mess from the same Newsweek article:

Who is to blame for the missed signals and too-rosy scenarios? The person charged with coordinating U.S. foreign policy is the president's national-security adviser, Condoleezza Rice. She likes to say that her national-security staff is not "operational," meaning that it advises on policy and leaves the implementation to government agencies. White House staffers are now surprisingly willing to dump on the Defense Department for bungling postwar security in Iraq. But for too long, White House staffers kept any qualms private. It is also true that the White House, including the president, signed off on the basic war plan and reconstruction effort.

On the ground, the Coalition Provisional Authority, charged with actually running Iraq until the Iraqis can take over, is the source of increasing ridicule. "CPA stands for the Condescending and Patronizing Americans," a Baghdad diplomat told a NEWSWEEK reporter. "So there they are, sitting in their palace: 800 people, 17 of whom speak Arabic, one is an expert on Iraq. Living in this cocoon. Writing papers. It's absurd," says one dissident Pentagon official. He exaggerates, but not by much. Most of the senior civilian staff are not technical experts but diplomats, Republican appointees, White House staffers and the like.

The cocoon these guys inhabit has to rival that of Chairman Mao -- who also heard only what he wanted to hear, thus causing massive starvation in China because he had "decreed" that the crop yields were X when in actuality they were really only 10% of X. And not one of his sycophants was interested or willing to debase him of his beliefs. Sort of like those surrounding our Dear Leader today, heh?

Posted by Mary at September 29, 2003 03:03 AM | TrackBack