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PRESIDENT George W. Bush values loyalty above all else. Journalist Ron Suskind and former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill called their 2004 expose of the Bush White House, The Price of Loyalty. In their description of White House staff they wrote, "A strict code of personal fealty to Bush - animated by the embrace of a few unquestioned ideologies - seemed to be in collision with a faith in the broader ideals of honest inquiry". Bush has consistently nominated his friends, close confidants and corporate allies to crucial posts. There are many examples. Michael Brown incompetently headed the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and just as Bush removed him, he elevated an inexperienced Juliet Myers, the daughter of General Richard Myers, to head the Immigration Enforcement Agency. Most recently, Bush nominated his personal lawyer Harriett Miers to be a judge on the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2004, when Bush nominated her to be his counsel, he called her "a trusted adviser". When he made the announcement about Miers on October 3, Bush said, "I know her heart. I know her character." This is what matters, not her qualifications and her independence.
The value placed on loyalty has meant that the White House has increasingly come to resemble an echo chamber; the only audible voices within it are those that embolden its policies. None of this should come as a surprise. In his campaign book written in 1999, Bush wrote, "I put a lot of faith and trust in my staff. I look for people who are smart and loyal and who share my conservative philosophy." It is a mark of how narrow his circle has become that he has had to recycle old friends into new posts, including his trusted adviser Karen Hughes who came back from retirement to take charge of the media campaign in West Asia.
The narrow range of opinion inside the White House leads to significant problems. As former counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke wrote in his expose, Against All Enemies, "Bush and his inner circle had no real interest in complicated analyses; on the issues that they cared about, they already knew the answers. It was received wisdom." The echo chamber had dire consequences, as Clarke noted: "I doubt that anyone ever had the chance to make the case to him that attacking Iraq would actually make America less secure and strengthen the broader radical Islamic-terrorist movement. Certainly he did not hear that from the small circle of advisers who alone are the people whose views he respects and hears." In recent weeks, the received wisdom within the White House is that if the U.S. military pulls out of Iraq, it will lead to a loss of U.S. prestige, which could result in another 9/11. The U.S. had once gone into Iraq to prevent a 9/11, and now its departure would do the same. Bush is resolute because his coterie has a technique that brooks no dissent. Stay the course they must, despite the widespread discontent within Iraq and atrophying support within the U.S..
On September 24, up to 300,000 people gathered in the centre of Washington, to put forward a fairly united message: bring the troops home now. A week before the march, Representative Lynn Woolsey held a hearing in Congress on an exit strategy for U.S. troops in Iraq. Former U.S. Senator Max Cleland summarised the attitude of the hearing, "I have concluded that the best way to support our troops is with an exit strategy from Iraq. We need an exit strategy we choose or it will certainly be chosen for us. The question about Iraq is not whether we will withdraw our forces, but when." The elected officials made their case in the shadows of Congress, but one of their own went out before the throng to address the people. At the march, Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney spoke of an ill wind that has blown across the U.S., which "breathes occupation onto the peoples of Iraq and Palestine. But just as sure as an ill wind now blows, it doesn't always have to be so. The people, united, can stop wars." Indeed, if the polls are any indication, the only thing that seems to unite the majority of U.S. residents is that they are fed up with this war. In late September, a Gallup poll revealed that more than 60 per cent of the population is in favour of a reduction of U.S. troops, with more than a quarter in favour of immediate, unconditional removal of all troops. Gallup asked over 1,000 Americans, "If you could talk with President Bush for 15 minutes about the situation in Iraq, what would you, personally, advise him to do?" Over 40 per cent of those asked said they would tell him to remove the troops immediately, while another 7 per cent would advise him to craft an exit strategy. These are the voices that Bush is not hearing inside the echo chamber.
The voices from Iraq are louder still. In September the Iraqi resistance detonated 32 car bombs, sent in two suicide bombers and conducted at least 50 gun battles and several mortar attacks. These injured 848 Iraqis, and killed 194 (compared to 58 dead in August). Forty-nine U.S. and three British soldiers died in the month. The pace of devastation and destruction has increased to the point where 82 members of the Iraqi National Assembly signed a public letter calling for "the departure of the occupation". Meanwhile, an undercover survey of Iraqis found that close to 70 per cent of the Shia population and more than three quarters of Sunnis favour an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops. In late July, Shaikh Abdul Zahra al-Suwaidi told his congregation in an East Baghdad mosque: "We obtained the Iraqi signatures demanding the withdrawal of the occupation troops as asked for by Sayyed Moqtada Sadr. The goal of this petition is to show the world the rejection by Iraqis of foreigners in Iraq."
None of this bodes well for the Bush agenda, which does not seek peace as much as it seeks control over the region. The "civil war" in Iraq between Shias and Sunnis is more a creation of Bush's policy than of theological disputes: the installation of Iyad Allawi, the purge of Ba'athists, the reinstatement of Ba'athists, the fear of Iran, the demonisation of the "Sunni triangle", and so on, created an atmosphere of distrust across confessional lines. What the U.S. claims to prevent is what it has promoted, and this is what is now well known in Iraq among its politicians.
In June, Ayham al-Samarrai, a former Electricity Minister, told the media that he had made contact with the Islamic Army and the Mujahideen Army, both of whom expressed their willingness to negotiate peace, but only on condition that the U.S. withdraw. The U.S. government remains obdurate and refuses to negotiate. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told a television show in June that the resistance movement in Iraq has "no political programme, but [they] simply want to destroy innocent life". If they have no political demands, then negotiation is futile. What the Bush team obscures is that the Iraqi resistance has its own problems with the jihadis, including the faction led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. In the heartland of the so-called "Sunni Triangle", in Ramadi, resistance fighters distributed leaflets that denounced Al Qaeda, while in Husaybah they attacked a local Al Qaeda redoubt. These are nationalists who want no truck with the jihadists at the same time as they want the U.S. army to depart.
They are as aware as the United Nations officials in Baghdad that the Constitution to be ratified on October 15 does not have a future. "It is a matter of public record that in the final weeks of the [constitution writing] process, the newly arrived U.S. Ambassador [Zalmay Khalilzad] took an extremely hands-on role," said Justin Alexander of the U.N. Assistance Mission to Iraq. Khalilzad circulated a U.S.-written draft, which, Alexander notes, "is highly inappropriate for a country with 140,000 soldiers in country". The ratification of the Constitution will not quell the nationalist feelings of a very large section of the Iraqi population. General George Casey, the senior U.S. commander in Iraq, made this clear in late September: "We've looked for the Constitution to be a national compact. The perception now is that it's not."
The Woolsey hearing produced five concrete steps that might lead to a withdrawal: a declaration that the U.S. has no strategic interest in permanent bases or oil; a de-escalation of offensive operations; a political settlement with Sunnis and opponents of occupation; an appointment of a peace envoy or a mediator; and, a commitment to reconstruction based on Iraqi economic needs, with U.S. funding. This is a reasonable departure from the echo chamber inside the White House, even though it does not adopt the views of the majority of the U.S. population. In May Representative Woolsey put forward a resolution to the U.S. House of Representatives for a phased withdrawal of troops. Three hundred representatives voted against it, but 128 voted for. In support of her amendment, Representative Woolsey argued, "The way to end the insurgency is to remove the troops who are viewed as occupiers."
On October 6 at the National Endowment for Democracy, Bush held fast and repeated two of his reasons against withdrawal. "As Iraqis stand up, we'll stand down," he said. The prognosis, however, is not optimistic. A year ago, U.S. commanders felt that three Iraqi battalions could function on their own, but now they admit to only one (the Iraqi army used to have 115 battalions). Bush remained undeterred by reality. He told reporters, "Well, there are over 80 army battalions fighting alongside coalition troops. There are over 30 Iraqi battalions in the lead. And that is substantial progress from the way the world was a year ago."
The second withdrawal plan is dire, "Against such an enemy, there's only one effective response. We never back down, never give in and never accept anything less than complete victory" (the last phrase was used in 2001 and 2003). This is not an exit strategy but a prognosis for permanent occupation. Bush, in his echo chamber, has crafted his own reality. Meanwhile, Baghdad burns.
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