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Other People's Sacrifice
September 9, 2003
By PAUL KRUGMAN
In his Sunday speech President Bush made a call for unity:
"We cannot let past differences interfere with present
duties." He also spoke, in a way he hasn't before, about
"sacrifice." Yet, as always, what he means by unity is that
he should receive a blank check, and it turns out that what
he means by sacrifice is sacrifice by other people.
It's now clear that the Iraq war was the mother of all
bait-and-switch operations. Mr. Bush and his officials
portrayed the invasion of Iraq as an urgent response to an
imminent threat, and used war fever to win the midterm
election. Then they insisted that the costs of occupation
and reconstruction would be minimal, and used the initial
glow of battlefield victory to push through yet another
round of irresponsible tax cuts.
Now almost half the Army's combat strength is bogged down
in a country that wasn't linked to Al Qaeda and apparently
didn't have weapons of mass destruction, and Mr. Bush tells
us that he needs another $87 billion, right away. It gives
me no pleasure to say this, but I (like many others) told
you so. Back in February I asked, "Is this administration
ready for the long, difficult, quite possibly bloody
business of rebuilding Iraq?" The example of Afghanistan
(where warlords rule most of the country, and the Taliban -
remember those guys? - is resurgent) led me to doubt it.
And I was, alas, right.
Surely the leader who brought us to this pass, and is now
seeking a bailout, ought to make some major concessions as
part of the deal. But it was clear from his speech that, as
usual, he expects to take while others do all the giving.
The money is actually the least of it. Still, it provides a
clear test case. If Mr. Bush had admitted from the start
that the postwar occupation might cost this much, he would
never have gotten that last tax cut. Now he says, "We will
do what is necessary, we will spend what is necessary. . .
." What does he mean, "we"? Is he prepared to roll back
some of those tax cuts, now that the costs of war loom so
large? Is he even willing to stop urging Congress to make
the 2001 tax cut permanent? Of course not.
Then there's the issue of foreign participation. The key
question here is whether the Bush administration will
swallow its pride and cede substantial control over the
occupation to the U.N. That's surely the price of a large
contingent of foreign soldiers. Mr. Bush didn't address
this issue directly, but he did say that he is seeking only
one more multinational division, which suggests that he
isn't going to make major concessions.
Yet as I understand it, one more division won't make much
difference in the security situation. In particular, it
will do little to alleviate the looming problem identified
by the Congressional Budget Office: in March, the U.S. will
have to start withdrawing most of its troops if it wants to
maintain "acceptable levels of military readiness" in the
Army as a whole.
Meanwhile, the administration is still counting on Iraq's
receiving billions of dollars in aid from other countries.
Unless the U.S. makes major concessions, forget about it.
But the most important concession Mr. Bush should make
isn't about money or control - it's about truth-telling. He
squandered American credibility by selling a war of choice
as a war of necessity; if he wants to get that credibility
back, he has to start being candid.
Yet in the speech on Sunday he was still up to his usual
tricks. Once again, he made a rhetorical link between the
Iraq war and 9/11. This argument by innuendo reminds us why
69 percent of the public believes that Saddam was involved
in 9/11, despite a complete absence of evidence. (There is,
on the other hand, strong evidence of a Saudi link - but
the administration's handling of that evidence borders on a
cover-up.) And rather than acknowledge that the search for
W.M.D. has come up empty, he declared that Saddam
"possessed and used weapons of mass destruction" - 1991,
2003, what's the difference?
So will Congress give Mr. Bush the money he wants, no
questions asked? It probably will, but it shouldn't. Mr.
Bush created this crisis, and if he were a true patriot he
would pay a political price to resolve it. Maybe it's time
for him to do a couple of things he's never done before,
like admitting mistakes and standing up to the hard right.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/09/opinion/09KRUG.html?ex=1064136483&ei=1&en=bc806d0c3c1abf42
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