Hubris

by Michael Isikoff

  Intelligence on Iraq’s weapons programs—and Saddam’s ties to terrorists, including al-Qaeda—certainly had its uses for Bush and his aides. It could, as Cheney, a former secretary of defense, knew, help battlefield commanders prepare for the invasion. And just as important—if not more—it could help the Bush White House build a case for war and whip up congressional and public support for the course chosen. Bush and his aides were looking for intelligence not to guide their policy on Iraq but to market it. The intelligence would be the basis not for launching a war but for selling it.

  So much of the coming debate over the intelligence on Iraq—did it indicate Iraq was a clear and present threat or not?—would be moot. The work of the thousands of intelligence professionals and the contentious tussles over the issue on Capitol Hill and within the media—all this was predicated on a false assumption: that the intelligence was a crucial element in whether war would happen. Much of what the CIA produced turned out to be embarrassingly flawed. But it was only window dressing for decision makers who did not need intelligence to know that they knew the truth.

  The reasons why Bush invaded Iraq—and the precise moment he resolved to do so—will be debated by historians for years to come. Part of it, as Bush’s outburst to Fleischer and Levine indicated, may well have been the president’s gut instincts and a powerful—if not personal—antipathy toward Saddam Hussein, a dictator whom George Bush’s father had defeated but left in place, a tyrant who had been accused of plotting to kill Bush’s father, and a brute who, in the days after 9/11, provided an easy-to-hit target for a president who felt driven to take tough measures to safeguard America.

  But for many others in his administration, the invasion of Iraq would be a faith-based war—predicated on certain ideological and geopolitical views. Cheney had his hardened Hobbesian views of power politics. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was a haughty, self-styled transformer, convinced that he could see what needed to be done better than his generals could. Beside them was a fraternity of neoconservative academics, polemicists, and former government officials who had been advocating war with Iraq for years, long before September 11. Many of the most important of these neoconservatives had been influenced by an eccentric academic who claimed that Saddam was the hidden hand behind al-Qaeda. Now leading members of this group held senior positions in the Bush administration. Richard Perle was the chairman of the Defense Policy Board and an influential adviser to Rumsfeld. Wolfowitz was deputy secretary of defense. Libby was Cheney’s chief of staff. Douglas Feith was undersecretary of defense for policy and running a secret unit that combed through raw intelligence reports seeking any information that linked Saddam to Osama bin Laden. In conferences at the American Enterprise Institute, in newspaper op-eds, and in articles in The Weekly Standard magazine, these hawks and their allies had been marshaling the case: Saddam was at the epicenter of world terrorism; he had assembled a massive arsenal of chemical and biological weapons; he was about to go nuclear; he was a threat to Israel, the Middle East, and the United States. Moreover, some of them argued, eliminating Saddam would serve larger policy goals: it would extend the United States’ influence in the region and upend the toxic status quo in the Middle East. It would advance the cause of freedom, ushering in a new era of democracy. Imagine a pro-West, pro-Israel bastion of democracy in the middle of this uneasy part of the planet.

  There was a case to be made. Saddam was a brutal ruler and a force for trouble, at least in the region. He had possessed chemical and biological weapons in the past and had sought nuclear weapons years earlier. He had gassed his enemies in the 1980s. He had not complied with UN Security Council resolutions demanding full disarmament. And after September 11, the United States had to be more vigilant about a prospective threat. He might still have biological and chemical weapons; he might be secretly developing nuclear weapons. He might one day hook up with anti-American terrorists. The continuing international sanctions imposed against his regime might be faltering and not thwart Saddam forever—especially if he used the billions of dollars he was skimming off the UN-supervised oil-for-food program to purchase WMD-related materials on the black market.

  But the advocates for war went beyond depicting Saddam as a prospective threat. He was, they claimed, the number one danger to the United States and an American military defeat of this murderous thug would not only enhance the security of Americans but spark a historic and positive transformation in the Middle East. Many argued that a war against Iraq would not be difficult, the aftermath not a problem. The Iraqis would be grateful, and so would Arabs everywhere. Their case—before and after 9/11—was based on unproven, dubious assumptions and sketchy and, in many respects phony, intelligence. But it ultimately rested on a strong core belief: we know what we’re doing.

  There was no doubt. Information from intelligence analysts or other experts in or out of government that contradicted or undermined the operating assumptions of the get-Saddam crowd was ignored or belittled.

  After the invasion, a bitter national debate would arise over how Bush had presented the case for war to the public. It was a damning question: had he—as well as Cheney, Rumsfeld, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and other administration figures—hyped the threat to rally popular support for an elective war against a nation with no known connection to 9/11? Had Bush, Cheney, and their aides shared with the public what the U.S. government really did—and did not—know about Saddam, his weapons programs, and his alleged ties to al-Qaeda? Certainly, the intelligence services had failed miserably by issuing all-too-definitive statements about Saddam’s WMDs. But had Bush compounded this failure by overselling the limited and flawed intelligence because war was his preferred option?

  THE manner in which Bush would sell the war—promoting questionable intelligence—would hit Valerie Wilson directly. Months after the invasion, her maiden name (Valerie Plame) and her classified employment status at the CIA would be disclosed by conservative columnist Robert Novak, who had received information on her from two Bush administration officials. One of them, who much later insisted he had only confirmed what Novak already knew, was Karl Rove, the president’s master strategist. Her career would be ruined, her operations and contacts possibly jeopardized. And all this would happen because her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, had challenged Bush’s use of a particularly lousy and misleading piece of intelligence to persuade (some might say, scare) Americans. Joseph Wilson was an imperfect critic. At points, he garbled some facts and overstated his case, even as he soundly raised questions about the administration’s handling of the prewar intelligence.

  The Plame affair would be full of ironies and twists. The investigation of the leak would entangle major media institutions, raise questions about the relationships between high-powered reporters and high-level sources, and land in jail one prominent journalist, whose prewar reporting on Iraq’s WMDs would come to symbolize the media’s complicity in the Bush White House’s sales campaign. The episode would become another battlefront in the fierce partisan wars of Washington. The leak would be assailed as a vengeful act of treason engineered to discredit an administration critic, and it would be dismissed by administration allies as relatively routine political hardball. But while the White House—especially Cheney’s office—would indeed train its sights on Wilson as a troublemaker, the original source of the leak was not a political hit man but a highly respected State Department official, who harbored deep doubts about Bush’s march to war. He mentioned Valerie Wilson to Novak not as part of a White House smear campaign targeting Joseph Wilson. It was, according to the official’s colleagues, a slip-up by an inveterate gossip—but one that occurred alongside a concerted White House effort to undermine a critic of the war.

  Still, the Plame affair, fueled by White House deceptions, was a window into a much bigger scandal: the Bush administration’s use of faulty intelligence and its fervent desire (after the invasion) to defend its prewar sales pitch. The
Plame matter would lead to an investigation of the White House, the appointment of a special counsel, and the indictment of a senior White House official. But its real significance was larger than the sum of its parts. It would come to represent the disturbing and intrigue-ridden story of how the Bush administration—full of we-know-best, gung ho officials keen for a war that they assumed would go well—presented a case for war that turned out to be, in virtually every aspect, fraudulent.

  It’s a tragic tale partly because the inside account of the intelligence mess is replete with episodes in which intelligence analysts and government officials actually made the correct calls about Iraq’s weapons, Baghdad’s supposed ties to al-Qaeda, and the difficulties that a war would bring. But they either did not prevail in internal bureaucratic scuffles or were disregarded by a White House committed to (or hell-bent on) war against Saddam. What happened to Valerie Wilson was part of this larger story: how flawed intelligence was misused by the president and his top aides to take the nation to war.

  WHEN Bush sat down for his History Channel interview on that spring day in 2002, ten months before he would send more than 150,000 American troops into Iraq, he did not seem to be thinking about nuances, conflicting intelligence reports, or the unknown consequences of bold action. The man in charge—the president who seemed to have resolved in his own mind that he would guide the nation to war—was thinking about moral clarity, about strong and decisive leadership, about standing tall against an evil tyrant. Reagan “didn’t say, ‘Well, Mr. Gorbachev, would you take the top three bricks off the wall?’ ” Bush told Frank Sesno. “He said, tear it all down…. And the truth of the matter is, I spoke about the Axis of Evil, and I did it for a reason. I wanted the world to know exactly where the United States stood.” Reagan’s hard line had been a success, Bush said to Sesno. Not only the top three bricks but the whole damn Berlin Wall had come tumbling down.

  Now Bush had the chance to do something similar. He would get rid of Saddam Hussein. As he had told his press aides, he would “kick his sorry motherfucking ass all over the Mideast.” But first he would have to convince Congress and the American public.

  Mr. President, if you go in there, you’re likely to be stuck in a quagmire.

  —HOUSE MAJORITY LEADER DICK ARMEY

  1

  A Warning at the White House

  THE PRESIDENT’S message was direct: There was no time to wait; the showdown with Saddam Hussein, the dictator of Iraq, had to start right away.

  It was the morning of September 4, 2002, and George W. Bush had summoned eighteen senior members of the House and Senate to the Cabinet Room of the White House. Talk of war with Iraq had been under way for months. The prospect had been debated on cable news shows, dissected on op-ed pages, discussed at think tanks. And within the White House, the Pentagon, and the CIA, the planning had long since begun. Now Bush was making it quite real for his guests. In a few days, his administration would launch a major public relations campaign to persuade the American people—and the world—that Saddam was such a pressing threat that war might be the only option. But before doing so, the White House wanted to get Congress in line.

  When the House and Senate members had taken their seats at the imposing oval mahogany table, they were given copies of a letter from the president. “America and the civilized world face a critical decision in the months ahead,” it began. “The decision is how to disarm an outlaw regime that continues to possess and develop weapons of mass destruction.” Since September 11, the letter said, “we have been tragically reminded that we are vulnerable to evil people. And this vulnerability increases dramatically when evil people have access to weapons of mass destruction.” Bush told the assembled leaders that he would work with them on Iraq. But he needed a quick vote in Congress on a resolution that would grant him the authority to take on Saddam, perhaps with military action. He didn’t have the proposed language yet. But he wanted this vote within six weeks—before Congress left town so members could campaign for reelection.

  Listening to the president, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle felt trapped. Bush’s promise to collaborate with Congress was a modest win for congressional leaders. Months earlier, White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales had insisted that Bush had the power to launch a war against Iraq without consulting Congress. But the White House had decided not to make a stand on this point.*1 Bush’s concession, though, imposed a burden on him: he would have to present a case for war that could win over a majority of lawmakers. And that meant he would have to offer evidence—that is, the administration’s secret intelligence on Iraq. But Daschle feared this apparent victory for Congress was part of a larger ploy.

  House and Senate members were gearing up for the final stretch of the campaign, with control of the Senate up for grabs. Bush was informing them that the national debate would now focus on Iraq, not health care, not tax cuts, not the environment or anything the Democrats wanted to talk about. You want to be involved, he was saying, well, here are the terms.

  The president’s comments were a jolt to Daschle. His Democratic caucus was already deeply divided. Its liberal members were adamantly opposed to the idea of going to war in Iraq. Other Democrats—out of agreement with Bush or out of fear of opposing a popular president’s confrontation with an anti-American tyrant—preferred to be on Bush’s side. And the president’s political strength was feared. Bush had smashed the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan (even if Osama bin Laden remained at large). Memories of September 11 were fresh. In such a climate, could Senate Democrats running for reelection not support the president’s assault on a brutal dictator wielding weapons of mass destruction?

  In the Cabinet Room, Daschle pressed Bush on why there was a need to move quickly. Sure, Saddam was a problem that had to be addressed. But what was new? How immediate was the threat? Where was the tangible evidence?

  And Daschle was thinking: Karl Rove. The previous January, Rove, Bush’s political strategist, had telegraphed his intention to use terrorism and national security issues to hammer Democrats in the fall campaign. “We can go to the country on this issue,” Rove had proclaimed at a Republican gathering, because the American people “trust the Republican Party to do a better job of strengthening America’s military might and thereby protecting America.” Then in June, a White House staffer had misplaced a computer disk containing a PowerPoint presentation that Rove and Kenneth Mehlman, his chief deputy, had prepared for GOP donors. In an odd twist, a Democratic Senate staffer found the disk across the street from the White House in Lafayette Park. “Focus on war and the economy,” read the slide outlining the Republican strategy for the 2002 elections. Focus on war. Daschle and other Democrats saw this as the GOP plan for political domination.

  Daschle wondered whether Bush was cynically pushing the Iraq threat as a campaign gambit. The day before the Cabinet Room meeting, Daschle had attended a breakfast with Bush in the president’s private dining room with Cheney, Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, and House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt. And he had put the same questions to the president. Wouldn’t it be better, he asked, to postpone this until after the election and take politics out of the debate? Bush had looked at Cheney, who shot the president what Daschle would describe as a “half smile.” Then Bush turned back to Daschle and said, “We just have to do it now.” That was it, Daschle would later recall: “He didn’t answer the question.” But Bush’s sidelong glance to Cheney was telling. It looked to Daschle as though the two of them had thought this through.

  Now in the Cabinet Room, within a larger group of legislators, Daschle received no more satisfying a reply, as Bush insisted that the House and Senate proceed quickly. “The issue isn’t going away,” Bush told the congressional leaders. “You can’t let it linger.”

  DASCHLE was not the only congressional leader in the White House that morning feeling uneasy. The most critical comments came from a Republican leader who infrequently weighed in on national security issues:
House Majority Leader Dick Armey, the number two Republican in the House. A month earlier, Armey, a Texan, had bluntly voiced his own misgivings about a war against Iraq. While campaigning in Iowa for a GOP congressional candidate, Armey had told reporters that Saddam was “a blowhard.” But as long as the Iraqi dictator didn’t bother anybody outside his own borders, Armey had said, he couldn’t see any basis for invading Iraq: “We Americans don’t make unprovoked attacks.”

  Armey’s Iowa comments had generated a brief flurry of media attention. They also upset the White House. Dan Bartlett, a deputy to White House communications director Karen Hughes, called Terry Holt, Armey’s press secretary, and complained. “It isn’t helpful for Armey to be out there speaking out against the president,” Bartlett said, according to Holt. Armey dropped the issue. Armey was a plain-speaking former college professor with two great passions: free-market economics and country music. He didn’t consider himself a foreign policy wizard—nor did anyone else in Washington. Still, the notion of going to war with Iraq made no sense to him. He assumed the administration’s war talk was merely bluster on Bush’s part, an effort to intimidate Saddam into accepting the return of UN weapons inspectors.

  But in the Cabinet Room, watching Bush pressure his congressional colleagues, Armey realized that Bush was serious, that he seemed committed to launching a war and overthrowing Saddam. He thought of another president from Texas, Lyndon Johnson, and what a reckless war had done to his administration. Armey, who had not said anything else about Iraq after his Iowa outburst, decided this was the moment to speak his mind directly to Bush. “Mr. President,” he said, “if you go in there, you’re likely to be stuck in a quagmire that will endanger your domestic agenda for the rest of your presidency.”