JVLV: "'THE DECISIONS WERE MADE,´ AFGHANISTAN AND IRAQ," By Jiri & Leni Friedman Valenta

 What happened in July 2002  reminds me of  December 1979 Afghanistan.  Then, Russian Chief of the General Staff Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov heatedly and fervently objected to the fateful decision to invade Afghanistan. “We will turn all of eastern Islam against us,” he prophesied.  “Mind your own business,” he was told by KGB Chief Yury Andropov.  “The decision has been made.” Condi Rice must know about this as a former student of the Russian general staff.

 In July 2002, charming and gifted Condi  also told Richard Haass, former head of the State Planning Council, “The decisions were made.” Additional vetting and discussion about the invasion of Iraq by his Council was not necessary. To former DCI George Tenet, Condi seemed assured that unless Iraq gave in to all U.S. demands, war was a foregone conclusion. Haass, the seasoned  present President of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) has since decried the Iraq mess as “a war of choice that represented a poor choice, ” poorly implemented.  Like Russia´s decision to invade Afghanistan it  showed, “the folly of overlooking local realities, be they political, cultural or historic.”

I know Condi Rice.  I  am one of several academics who did everything to help her very  early career.  I even let her put my name with hers on the first article she ever published, "The Czechoslovak Army." In Communist Armies in Politics, edited by Jonathan R. Adelman, 129- 48. Boulder: Westview Press, 1982.  We were all fascinated with this attractive, bright  black female --the only one in Soviet studies. I am writing now, haunted by the thousands of deaths in the Iraq war.  For disclosure, I too shared some of the illusions about Iraqi nation building, and was told I even coined the term de-Bathification in an article I published in the Washington Times. My strong advice to Jeb now is not to be his brother´s “keeper.”  He could be a great president, but he needs to undertake a clean sweep, get better advisors, and not defend  the Iraq war as Rice and a few  other of his brother´s holdovers still do while defending themselves.  

Presently hindering Jeb´s poll numbers is his emotional flubbing of Megan Kelly´s Iraq question. The proper answer to that question for Jeb is  that he would have followed the policies of his father, “H”, not his brother, “W”.  A surgical strike to depose Saddam might have been another option as Robert Gates suggested, but Dad and his NSA, General Brent Scowcroft, were both right to reject war and occupying Baghdad in 1991, with its yawning chasms between Shiites and Sunnis, and its  semi- feudal, Mesopotamian political culture.

Jeb could state that one can understand the traumatic shock of 9/11 and our nation´s determination not to allow such a tragedy again.  He can  praise “W’s” successful war in Afghanistan against Al Qaeda. He can also give kudo to General Petraeus for the surge, and attack Obama for  leaving the vacuum filled first by Al Qaeda, then ISIS.  However it was a stretch to link Hussein with Al Qaeda and the development of WMD. 

Jeb could also mention the folly of Bill Clinton who dropped bombs on Iraq from Dec. 16-19, 1998, when he had no evidence of WMD.  The peculiar timing – during his impeachment hearings – have led some to suggest that the bombings should be called ¨Monica´s war.”

But first  Jeb needs to know what went wrong.  In his own memoir, DCI George Tenet shows  how  the Bush team was in such a hurry to meet a voting deadline they did not give themselves sufficient time for a proper National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) of all factors.  He confirms what Haass told me.  (I am a member of CFR).  Thus, rightly fearing  that he would get blamed if things soured, Tenet started to question the intelligence himself.  Later, he would  recall Scowcroft’s wise comments.  “What happens when the  Intelligence Community provides Intelligence that policy-makers want to hear (even if it´s incorrect)?” 

Sadly, that´s what happened.  Condi is not wholly to blame. Dick Cheney and Rumsfeld´s deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, also promoted the war without factual justification, alleging a strong relationship between Al Qaeda and Iraq.  But above all, as Rumsfeld wrote, Rice did a very poor job in airing policy debates between the principle organizations such as Defense and State.  As he put it, the major problem was, “… her commitment to whenever possible bridging differences between the agencies, (and reporting the consensus to “W”) rather than bringing those agencies to the President for decisions.”

Who really was the source of  the bogus “uranium from Africa” supporting Saddam´s possessing WMD?   Apparently the Brits  provided the information that Saddam Hussein had recently been caught attempting to purchase 500 pounds of uranium oxide (yellowcake),  an ingredient that can be used in making nuclear bombs. But the source was not reliable. Thus on October 5, 2002, Tenet’s staff  complained of having trouble getting the White House to remove a sentence from a speech the president was planning to give in Cincinnati.

Tenet  gave his reasons for wanting the phrase removed, “… the amount is in dispute and it is debatable (whether) uranium oxide can be acquired from the source.”  He called Rice´s deputy,  Hadley, and told him, “Steve, take it out!”  The president, he asserted,  should not be a “fact witness” to such a statement. Tenet´s office followed up with a memo to Hadley and the White House speech writer. The phrase was removed.

Flash forward three months:  On January 28   2003, with Bush´s  State of the Union address at hand, Rice would recall, “…The President knew that we were likely headed to war and wanted to give as detailed an assessment to the American people as possible.” But, the yellowcake phrase that was supposed to be out – was still  in.  Then she recalls that, “Three months earlier  George Tenet had urged that this reference be removed.” Yet, she still blames Tenet that this time he did not repeat the request.

But wait-a-minute! Strangely enough, the phrase was still in, that February, when Colin Powell made a speech endorsing the war to the U.N.  Who put it back? Many believe her and her team.

Tenet  should perhaps have resigned at that point. But let´s put this in the proper perspective.  As Haass revealed, the decision was made in July  2002.  Naysayers not welcome!  Just as with  9/11, when Condi, neglected an essential memo warning of an attack on the homeland and blamed Dick Clarke who had repeatedly warned her, this time she put the blame on Tenet and threw him under the bus.  The truth, however,  is that the intelligence upon which the nation went to war with Iraq was not only wrong but cooked!  Moreover, the NSC people under “W”  knew  it –  Just as Yury Andropov´s information about Afghan President Haffizolah Amin being a CIA agent was likely cooked by the KGB.  Ambitious Andropov wanted to be Brezhnev´s successor as general secretary, while Rice wanted to succeed Powell as Secretary of State.  As  Rice told Haas, the decision had been made. 

Wrote New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd years later in her 2012 column, “Is Rice Cooked,” “Ambitious to be secretary of state, Condi jilted her mentor, Brent Scowcroft, who publicly opposed the Iraq invasion (like Ogarkov opposed invading Afghanistan). In 2002, she bolted to the winning, warmongering side with “W.”, Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz, helping them twist intelligence and getting Foggy Bottom (State) in return.’’

  Of course Condi was also helped by an earlier incident.  On December 21, 2002, Tenet cordially told  the President that his forthcoming Iraq presentation was a “slam dunk.”  This phrase, taken out of context, appeared in Bob Woodward´s book, Plan of Attack, with the wrongful inference that it provided the basis of the President´s decision to invade Iraq.  And Woodward benefitting from the information gleaned from Bush and Rice, is not an innocent bystander.  He still maintains what he was told and that the  administration did not lie. The administration would later repeat the phrase to push the blame onto Tenet. Honorable Tenet, a holdover from the Clinton adminstration, refused to be the fall guy and resigned.

The truth is that the rush to war was partly  emotional and partly shaped by personal idiosyncrasies and interest  – the 9/11 attack on the homeland and “W”´s hatred of Saddam for wanting to kill his father. But the WMD evidence was at best murky as well as being rushed, poorly researched and not properly vetted.  

 Rumsfeld would later recall first learning from the New York Times how Condi had established an ‘Iraqi Stabilization Group,’  responsible for the day to day handling of Iraq. An absolute intrusion on his turf!  On October 6, 2003,  he wrote an angry memo to the President and the other Principles, stating Rice and her staff did not have the “interest or skill” for this undertaking. Rice revoked her previous press announcement. Privately, she apologized to him.  

All this should be very worrisome to Jeb. The march to the Iraq war,  including Condi´s poor vetting of al Maliki as leader, have been catastrophic. It led to the deaths and/or maiming of thousands of our soldiers.  There were further errors with North Korea, not covered here.

Jeb can surely recover from the Iraq flub, going back to his father´s shining example of limited war objectives. This was not Jeb´s war. It was his brother´s and largely, though not only Condi´s.   Condi and his brother´s leftovers should get some plum assignments or ambassadorships, but they should not be on his primary advisory team as they will defend their prior errors to the death. Under no circumstances should Jeb consider her as a running mate if he puts patriotism and the country´s welfare before politics. Jeb must tell the truth and extricate himself.

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