STATE OF DENIAL

Woodward, B. (2006) "State of Denial" Newsweek, 9/932-42

Things are good and then sometimes bad, but it is a long slog that Americans do not understand. We are fighting a new type of war and the pentagon is still back in the industrial age. I am the civilian commander, but I am not really all that responsible because I can't get the pentagon to do the necessary things that need to get done to win this war. It will probably take 8 to 10 years to get this in shape. So as things stand right now, we are in fairly good shape.

Very roughly speaking, this is the view of Donald Rumsfeld as interpreted by Bob Woodward.

The key theme is to deny, deny, deny. Things are okay. President Bush is only partially involved. The reports are not that alarming. It is going to take a long time so this will be the best that can be done at this time.

Most others come in and say about the same thing. We are getting the job done. It is going to  take awhile. THOSE ON THE OUTSIDE JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND. We can't go for quick fixes. We have many measures of the war and they are mixed as they should be in the long struggle toward democracy.

When knowledgeable and creditable former insiders critique candidly say that things are bad, they don't understand. The first in command Jay Garner said that the USA needed to keep the Iraq forces and administration because no one knew the country like they did. He also said that the USA could NOT dismantle WMD's, establish a democracy, defeat the terrorists. President Bush

was not agitated at all. He asked Garner about his accent.

Garner finished. No one had any questions and so he left. Bush moved on and after the invasion Garner was replaced with Bremer. Bremer changed everything that was planned. He got rid of the Army, dumped the political administration. Soon key leaders that knew how the electricity worked and how to fix the roads were gone along with thousands of former soldiers. The formal war then devolved into a guerilla war. Civilization deconstructed and Bremer headed home.

For the White House, things were fine.To get rid of Rumsfeld, meant a long troubling fight in Congress for the new appointee and numerous questions about the war and how it was being handled.

We need to keep a brave face and the news is not all that bad. It will get better. We will get  a number of people to reduce the insurgency. We can instruct them on how to do it and then it is up to them. We can do it even with the uncertainties that we face at this time. In the end, it is their war. We were there to help. I am not the commander in this thing. You know. I try to set policy then it moves very slowly through the political morass of the military and state  bureaucracies..

Rumsfeld then moves on to other topics.

This is Woodward's third book on Bush and the war. It is the most critical.