I had planned to blog about this over the weekend, but got side tracked. In light of the controversy over Clarke’s accusations and especially the administration’s response–and the discussion of it by my fellow Conspirators–I think Andrew Sullivan is on the right track. Though he is writing in the context of WMD’s it applies here as well:
A considerable number of Americans — including many in the pro-war camp — believe this administration has not been forthright enough about the reasons for the intelligence failure. What the president should have done, in my view, was give a talk to the American people a few months ago, tell them exactly what we had and hadn’t found, and explain that, although some of the intelligence turned out to be flawed, he still took the right decision in the circumstances. Bush made too much of the WMDs before the war as a casus belli not to confront this issue directly when it emerged we were wrong. Instead, he acted defensively. He first denied there was a problem, then he dismissed the problem, then he justified his actions regardless, without taking full responsibility for the errors. In a word, it made him look insecure and weak. Yes, there was a risk in fussing up directly to an intelligence failure. But it turns out that the risk of simply ducking and spinning was greater. The reason he has lost standing is because insecurity is not something people look for in a war leader. There were many times that Churchill had to tell Britons of mistakes or failures or difficulties. When confronted with errors of the kind that Bush’s intelligence made in Iraq, a good war leader steps up to the plate. When asked about the lack of stockpiles of WMDs as opposed to evidence of possible WMD programs, such a leader doesn’t irritatedly respond, “What’s the difference?” Part of the Aznar lesson is that people don’t like being bamboozled. If Bush doesn’t learn that soon, he may learn it the hard way in November.(my bold)
(John Stewart made much the same observation of the administration at his Boston concert last Saturday night–though he was much funnier.) Bush (or someone) needed to explain exactly what made them think Iraq had WMDs. Some have speculated that it was electronic surveillance of inter-Iraqi discussion of WMD’s that was either disinformation or deliberate misleading by or of Saddam. But this is mere speculation. The administration actually knows what happened and needed to explain it. Even if sources and methods are somewhat compromised, this is far better than compromising political support for the entire mission. The American people would understand a good faith reliance on bad intelligence, but it would be much easier if they had some idea of the nature of the bad intelligence that led to inaccurate conclusions.
Part of this is simply the price one pays for an inarticulate President. I vehemently reject the equation of articulateness with intelligence. But inarticulateness can be a serious liability when nuanced explanations from the Commander-in-Chief are required. But I do not, however, believe that inarticulateness is the whole problem. I know not the cause, only the effect. And the effect is as Andrew Sullivan describes: The Bush team, the President himself, does not address serious questions raised about its conduct in a completely careful and serious manner. Bush’s falling approval numbers, as well as his falling trustworthy numbers, are in large measure a product of the primary season in which he was the object of unrelenting attacks (“Bush lied!”). But an even larger part of the problem lies at the doorstep of the administration itself. For these charges would not have been nearly as effective if the President and his team had more effectively confronted and accounted for their own obvious errors.
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