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Page A21 President Bush planted the seeds of the destruction of his Iraq policy be fore the war started. Salvaging the venture will require an unprecedente d degree of candor and realism from a White House that was never willing to admit -- even to itself -- how large an undertaking it was asking th e American people to buy into. The notion that the president led the country into war through indirectio n or dishonesty is not the most damaging criticism of the administration . The worst possibility is that the president and his advisers believed their own propaganda. They did not prepare the American people for an ar duous struggle because they honestly didn't expect one. How else to explain the fact that the president and his lieutenants consi stently played down the costs of the endeavor, the number of troops requ ired, the difficulties of overcoming tensions among the Sunnis, the Shii tes and the Kurds? The more logical explanation is that they didn't know what they were talking about. Because the White House failed to prepare Americans for what was to come, the administration now faces a backlash. Over the weekend Bush said tha t the terrorists in Iraq were seeking to "weaken our nation's resolve." But the rising impatience about which Bush complains is a direct result of the administration's blithe dismissal of those who warned just how to ugh the going could get. The assertion of the "Downing Street Memo" that "the intelligence and fac ts were being fixed around the policy" of invasion has understandably be come a rallying point for the war's opponents. But in some ways more dev astating are other recently disclosed documents in which British officia ls warned that "there was little discussion in Washington of the afterma th after military action." The British worried at the time that "US mi litary plans are virtually silent" on the fact that "a postwar occupatio n of Iraq could lead to a protracted and costly nation-building exercise ." The most damaging document supporting this claim is not secret, and remai ns one of the most important artifacts of the prewar debate. It is the t ranscript of "Meet the Press" from March 16, 2003, in which Vice Preside nt Cheney gave voice to the administration's optimistic assumptions that have now been laid low by reality. Host Tim Russert asked whether "we would have to have several hundred tho usand troops there" in Iraq "for several years in order to maintain stab ility." He wouldn't say how many troops we re needed, but he added that "to suggest that we need several hundred th ousand troops there after military operations cease, after the conflict ends, I don't think is accurate. Russert asked: "If your analysis is not correct, and we're not treated as liberators but as conquerors, and the Iraqis begin to resist, particula rly in Baghdad, do you think the American people are prepared for a long , costly, and bloody battle with significant American casualties?" "Well, I don't think it's likely to unfold that way, Tim, because I really do believe that we will be greeted as li berators. I've talked with a lot of Iraqis in the last several months my self, had them to the White House.
get rid of Sad dam Hussein and they will welcome as liberators the United States when w e come to do that." Russert: "And you are convinced the Kurds, the Sunnis, the Shiites will c ome together in a democracy?" And the vice president concluded: "I think th e prospects of being able to achieve this kind of success, if you will, from a political standpoint, are probably better than they would be for virtually any other country and under similar circumstances in that part of the world." Was Cheney disguising the war's costs for political purposes? That suggests that the admini stration was not misleading the American people nearly so much as it was misleading itself. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska says in the current issue of US News & World Report that "the White House is completely disconnected fr om reality" and that "it's like they're just making it up as they go alo ng." Unfortunately, the evidence of the past suggests that Hagel's acerb ic formulation may be exactly right. Those who still see the invasion of Iraq as a noble mission don't need to protect the policy from the war's critics.
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