COMM 317: Another, pro-invasion viewpoint on Iraq

One of the architects of the Iraq war is coming out with a book in which he claims the Bush administration was right about invading Iraq, and the failure of its Iraq policy was essentially caused by Washington politicians who sabotaged the effort. A draft copy of Douglas Feith's book, which is due to come out next month, was obtained by The Washington Post, which ran a story on it Sunday.

Feith's book serves as a reminder the Bill Moyers video we watch this week, on the selling of the Iraq invasion to the American people, does not reflect a consensus. Many of the people Moyers interviewed believe the Bush administration deliberately overstated the case for invasion. Feith, who served as undersecretary of defense for policy under former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, would deny that.

Instead Feith's book, according to the Post, is a "massive score-settling work" that "portrays an intelligence community and a State Department that repeatedly undermined [Rumsfeld's] plans" and suggests the invasion would have succeeded if his plans had been followed. Staff writers Thomas E. Ricks and Karen DeYoung say:

Although he acknowledges "serious errors" in intelligence, policy and operational plans surrounding the invasion, Feith blames them on others outside the Pentagon and notes that "even the best planning" cannot avoid all problems in wartime. While he says the decision to invade was correct, he judges that the task of creating a viable and stable Iraqi government was poorly executed and remains "grimly incomplete."

It is fair to point out that Feith's opinion is not widely shared. Others say Bush, Rumsfeld and Feith himself ignored the advice of experts on the Middle East and bungled the invasion and subsequent occupation. Ricks and DeYoung add:

In summarizing his view of what went wrong in Iraq, Feith writes that it was a mistake for the administration to rely so heavily on intelligence reports of Hussein's alleged stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons and a nuclear weapons program, not only because they turned out to be wrong but also because secret information was not necessary to understand the threat Hussein posed.

Hussein's history of aggression and disregard of U.N. resolutions, his past use of weapons of mass destruction and the fact that he was "a bloodthirsty megalomaniac" were enough, Feith maintains.

He blames both the CIA and Powell, who outlined the weapons case in a February 2003 speech at the United Nations, for overemphasizing the threat. But Feith appears to ignore the crucial role that statements from Cheney and Rice, about the imminence of "mushroom clouds" emanating from Iraqi nuclear weapons, played in the case the administration made for war.

Each of us will have to come to our own judgment on Feith's assertions. I am not sure they have much bearing on Moyers' main points: (1) that the media reported the Bush administration's message on Iraq to the exclusion of other Middle East experts (mostly outside the administration) who did not believe it to reflect the truth; and (2) the media had an ethical duty to report both points of view during the run-up to the 2003 invasion. But as we watch the video, we should keep in mind that the wisdom of invading Iraq is a subject on which reasonable people can and still do disagree.