Josh Marshall: How Jeb Bush Triggered an Iraq War Watershed

[babylonsister]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/how-jeb-bush-triggered-an-iraq-war-watershed


How Jeb Bush Triggered an Iraq War Watershed

By Josh Marshall
PublishedMay 14, 2015, 1:37 PM EDT


I mentioned a couple days ago that this might be happening. And now I think we're seeing that it is. Improbably, Jeb Bush's run for president and painful bumbling have triggered, though by no means caused, a watershed moment in the country's reckoning with the strategic blunder - and let's just say it - self-inflicted catastrophe of the Iraq War.

snip//

We all sort of know that the ground has shifted on this issue. We can see it clearly in public opinion polls. But it is as though it's been years since we actually had a show of hands - especially among national Republicans. Good idea? Bad idea? As I was writing this, Jeb Bush himself has now come forward and, on the fourth try, said the Iraq War was a mistake. What I've called that showing of hands seems to show virtually no one of any consequence standing up for the decision to invade. Maybe we all kind of knew that that was where people had gotten to. But seeing people say it is a transformative event.

Over that time, the ground has shifted not just on the facts of the issue, but on what is in many ways a more consequential front: Time has passed and Republicans simply don't feel the same sort of partisan responsibility for the conflict. It's drifting back into history. The sense of ideological and partisan commitment has just loosened - the intuitive reflex that says our guy did it so it must be right and I need to defend it. (It will be interesting to see what, if anything, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Kristol et al. have to say.)

Yes, each candidate has an incentive based on this race. But Cruz and Rubio especially are fighting for base Republicans. If they were still committed to the wisdom of the Iraq War, they wouldn't be saying this. And yet they are. That is a major watershed in the country's reckoning with the war. If Republicans running as hawks say it was a mistake, then the debate is really over.

And it won't end there. Because with a consensus in place that the Iraq War was a bad idea, the whys and hows of just how we made this decision are up for discussion in a very new way.

[Capt. Obvious]

1. kick

[SalviaBlue]

2. K&R

[geek tragedy]

3. And, the need to learn from the 'mistake'

instead of repeating it wrt Iran.

[blm]

4. It wasn't 'bad intel' it was deliberately COOKED intel fed to world leaders, congress, media

and the American people.


Oct. 8, 2002, 10:47AM

Some administration officials expressing misgivings on Iraq
By WARREN P. STROBEL and JONATHAN S. LANDAY
Knight-Ridder Tribune News

WASHINGTON -- While President Bush marshals congressional and international
support for invading Iraq, a growing number of military officers, intelligence
professionals and diplomats in his own government privately have deep misgivings
about the administration's double-time march toward war.

These officials charge that administration hawks have exaggerated evidence of
the threat that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein poses -- including distorting his
links to the al-Qaida terrorist network -- have overstated the amount of
international support for attacking Iraq and have downplayed the potential
repercussions of a new war in the Middle East.

They charge that the administration squelches dissenting views and that
intelligence analysts are under intense pressure to produce reports supporting
the White House's argument that Saddam poses such an immediate threat to the
United States that pre-emptive military action is necessary.

"Analysts at the working level in the intelligence community are feeling very
strong pressure from the Pentagon to cook the intelligence books," said one
official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

A dozen other officials echoed his views in interviews.

No one who was interviewed disagreed.
>>>>>

[erronis]

14. +++ - this needs to be repeated. It was INTENTIONAL by the chicken-hawks.

[blm]

19. By the chickenhawks-in-chief: Bush/Cheney

NO ONE SHOULD EVER ACCEPT THE HORSESH!T line that the 'intel was bad'…..let alone REPEAT IT.

[Jack Rabbit]

20. The intel was only bad after Cheney edited it to suit his purpose

The man should be frog marched to The Hague.

[hifiguy]

24. He should be dancing at the end of a rope.

[DeeDeeNY]

18. +1000

This can't be emphasized enough.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

5. Three thoughts

1) Jeb Bush seems to have a problem that other conservatives have had from time to time: when they are interviewed on FAUX, they seem to forget that their quotes will be heard outside of those friendly confines.

2) Conservatives were mistaken if they had thought that ISIS had shifted American views on justification of the Iraq War.

3) Interestingly, a PPP poll (it was posted in DU, but I don't have a link - sorry) showed the GOP primaries as Walker in 1st, Rubio and Ben Carson 2 & 3, and the Jebster in 4th -- and I think that was taken before these comments came out.

E.T.A. I was wrong - Jeb's polling 5th, but to be fair, the field is very tight.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026668278

Raleigh, N.C. – PPP's national Republican poll for May continues to find Scott Walker
leading the field, but it's tightly clustered and his support has actually dropped two
consecutive surveys now. Walker's at 18% to 13% for Marco Rubio, 12% each for Ben
Carson and Mike Huckabee, 11% for Jeb Bush, 10% for Ted Cruz, 9% for Rand Paul, 5%
for Chris Christie, and 2% for Rick Perry.

[No Vested Interest]

6. What really bothers me about Republicans and the Iraq War is

that they never speak up and take action re paying ($) for the whole mess and its aftermath.
Any thoughts on how that -er, debt- can be brought to their attention?

[riqster]

31. It didn't help that Obama let them off the hook.

A singularly naive man in many respects.

[JDPriestly]

7. Rubio and Cruz were not yet in Congress in 2001. This allows them to aim

at both Hillary who was and Jeb whose brother was president.

Rubio elected 2011 and Cruz 2012. They didn't have to make the call. Nor did Jeb although George W. is responsible for the bad call. So is Hillary but less so.

[Bucky]

8. It's like watching a lobster learning to ride a bicycle

Republicans' mental skills just aren't configured around the tasks of learning from factual results or admitting past mistakes. But by golly a few of them lobsters are actually trying to figure out how to peddle that contraption back into the White House. I think it's cute.

[erronis]

15. Good mental images but I don't get the lobster/bicycle connection..

I'm sorta slow. Anyway, thanks for getting me out of my blues about the Obama TPP crap.

Now I could see Cristy-Creme on a bicycle with both tires flat and the frame dragging on the ground.

Or most of them trying to ride a bicycle on what's left of the road system after they get finished with it.

I'll bet they're all happy cutting infrastructure to the bare bones as long as their private heliports and executive airfields are still operating smoothly.

[hifiguy]

25. Or a cow on roller skates.

[riqster]

32. Or elephants trying to scale mountains.

[hibbing]

9. "virtually no one of any consequence standing up for the decision to invade" *** Not True ***

The Dick, Rummy, and all that other criminal cabal still say it was the right decision. Perhaps it comes down to who you consider people of consequence. Or maybe I am just not reading it correctly.

And BTW, just where has the Colin been hiding out at? Just flying around the country making speeches for tens of thousands of dollars or what?


Peace

[Damansarajaya]

12. Bernie Sanders speaks against the Iraq War

http://www.sanders.senate.gov/video/flashback-rep-bernie-sanders-opposes-iraq-war

2002

Mr. Speaker, the front page of The Washington Post today reported that all relevant U.S. intelligence agencies now say despite what we have heard from the White House that "Saddam Hussein is unlikely to initiate a chemical or biological attack against the United States.'' Even more importantly, our intelligence agencies say that should Saddam conclude that a U.S.-led attack could no longer be deterred, he might at that point launch a chemical or biological counterattack. In other words, there is more danger of an attack on the United States if we launch a precipitous invasion.

Mr. Speaker, I do not know why the President feels, despite what our intelligence agencies are saying, that it is so important to pass a resolution of this magnitude this week and why it is necessary to go forward without the support of the United Nations and our major allies including those who are fighting side by side with us in the war on terrorism.

But I do feel that as a part of this process, the President is ignoring some of the most pressing economic issues affecting the well-being of ordinary Americans. There has been virtually no public discussion about the stock market's loss of trillions of dollars over the last few years and that millions of Americans have seen the retirement benefits for which they have worked their entire lives disappear. When are we going to address that issue? This country today has a $340 billion trade deficit, and we have lost 10 percent of our manufacturing jobs in the last 4 years, 2 million decent-paying jobs. The average American worker today is working longer hours for lower wages than 25 years ago. When are we going to address that issue?

[hibbing]

17. I know that..

The article was talking about the Republican idiots I thought.

Peace

[Damansarajaya]

29. Heh, yup, I feel like I'm listening and talking through

dixie cups and strings when I interact on a message board like DU.

Easy to get the wrong message.

Peace to you too . . .

[erronis]

16. That criminal cabal is not running for office or having to answer hostile questions.

It is only a daydream to imagine the architects of the Cheney/Rumsfeld/W war hauled before some tribunal. But one could dream.

If that cabal makes it into the cabinet/advisory role with a neocon president, the PTB will make sure they are immune from any of life's little annoyances. After all, the Smirker (Chinney) might blow a gasket on T.V. and that would be messy - but fun.

[No Vested Interest]

22. I still consider Colin Powell, despite all his soft talking, one of the worst

instigators of the whole Iraq mess.

Yes, he knew the evidence was not there, despite his presentation to the U.N.
Why is the picture of him showing those photos so etched in my mind?
May God forgive him.
I haven't.

[Hoppy]

10. Yeah, let's remember Hillary's vote about Iraq. O.t.o.h, what was Bernie's vote?

[Damansarajaya]

13. He was totally against -- see above.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=6673468

[Damansarajaya]

11. Anybody else remember the end of Vietnam? The Vietnam war was a mistake

too to Conservatives . . . for awhile.

Then it became a "liberals stabbed us in the back" and "we would have won if not for Jane Fonda."

[robbob]

30. Mistake?

I consider it an atrocity and war crime that I believe (hope) will one day in the distant future will be viewed that way. A technologically superior nation undertook to "bomb them back to the stone age" (forget which general made that statement) and secretly conducted massive bombing campaigns against neighboring regions.

It was not a mistake; it was borderline genocide. Right up there with Soviet Russia or Nazi Germany in terms of sheer savagery and lack of concern for human life. Estimates vary; between 1.5-3.6 MILLION Vietnamese were killed, the vast majority civilians, often deliberately targeted.

<on edit> re-reading your post I realize YOU are not calling it a mistake, but pointing out that the GOP's will refer to it as such. Sorry for venting; not aimed at you, more at the media and historians who cover up war crimes with pretty euphemisms like "mistakes" and "collateral damage".

[LiberalLovinLug]

34. And further to the point...It was NOT a mistake

to the Bushes, Cheneys, Rumsfelds, Rice etc.. They made off like banshees. Halliburton was on the verge of bankruptcy until it received all those no-bid contracts. The American tax-payer dolled out 39 billion to Halliburton and its subsidiary KBR alone in the 10 years, reviving the company into now one of the richest on the planet.

And you could trace oil companies and arms manufacturers, who all were heavily invested in by that Republican cabal.

Jeb must have had a "Oh that's what they mean" moment. That the unwashed masses must have meant the sillly little side effects of that trumped up war like thousands of young American soldiers lives, and many more injured for life, plus millions of Iraqis dead, the destabilization of the Middle East to give rise to ISIS, the trillions in cost to treasury and debt to China for generations......THAT's what they meant by the question.....

..so ehem, I'd better try as I might to emph....emph....(gawd this is hard)..to empathize with the general public and admit that it probably didn't turn out all that great from their perspective.

[Damansarajaya]

37. I remember well GHW Bush pontificating about the end

of the "Vietnam Syndrome."

The Vietnam Syndrome is what Republicans call learning not to commit troops to an unnecessary, illegal, and immoral war. Nah, they're ready to do Vietnam over and over again.

[Damansarajaya]

38. I totally agree.

Vietnam was much worse than a "mistake." But I used that word for the sake of brevity, as in John Kerry's, "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"

[kentuck]

21. Josh Marshall is one of the best...

in my opinion.

[Bucky]

23. And yet he supported the invasion of Iraq 2003 and continued to support occupation thru '05

He was hornswaggled just like the rest of Washington. He suffered from the same "fear of appearing weak" that lured lots of good, but insecure liberals into Bushvision. I think he still had some residual TNR infection flowing thru his veins.

When I think about people getting PO'd at Clinton for her support of Iraq, I compare her to Marshall. Too bad the American addiction to empire has this corrupting effect on liberal minds. Not that the world doesn't benefit somewhat from American hegemony.

[on point]

26. And the 'Intelligence was bad' fig leaf just won't do. It was an obvious lie

from the start.

Those who claim they supported the war based on these obvious propaganda lies were:

1. Easily conned and therefore deserving of no further trust (or Higher office) or
2 Using it as convenient cover to hide their gung ho support

[blm]

28. It was a CRAFTED LIE. Begins and ends with Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld.

.

[pansypoo53219]

27. my aunt happened to see a gnewz scrawl about jeb's jump retreat om iwaq + was confused. did we

attavk iwaq. so i had to explain what W II said. the fuck we did in iwaq. tho she knows it was bad.

[maddiemom]

33. Yeah. So it should be.

Except, due to the catastrophic collective amnesia most of our citizens quickly acquire, I won't hold my breath while waiting for a great epiphany about the Bushes.

[Scurrilous]

35. K & R

[Proud Liberal Dem]

36. I don't trust them not to repeat their mistakes (or make brand new ones)

They are certainly spoiling for a fight with Iran and may even want to go back to Iraq since they think that following the terms of SOFA was a mistake.

Bottom line is this: If you don't want a lot of senseless wars and boneheaded foreign policy decisions, don't vote for Republicans because that's what you're get if you pull the lever for one.