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Time to come clean: an open letter to President Bush

W. E. Gutman

“To oppose everything while proposing nothing is irresponsible," you barked recently.

Specious logic. Sophistry.

To propose an absurdity (a “surge” in troops) as a means of soft-pedaling an endless string of absurdities --- and in defiance of America’s wishes --- is Machiavellian and reckless.

After seven years of faulty reasoning, deception, mismanagement, arrogance and obstinacy in the face of glaring reality, you now seek refuge in the vaporous realm of circuitous and meaningless rhetoric.

At long last, it is no longer indelicate or politically incorrect to assert that the Iraq war is an unmitigated failure, an abattoir where the flower of America's youth is being decimated, a drain on the nation's wallet and a blemish on our collective conscience.

The invasion of Iraq was, from the start, a colossal strategic and tactical blunder.  You justified the war as an assault on terrorism. You argued that Saddam had ties to al-Qaeda, and that his overthrow would lead to democratization in the Middle East.  Intelligence reports failed to uncover any connection between Saddam and al-Qaeda. “Democracy” remains a nebulous concept in a region disfigured by violence.

You claimed that Iraq was producing biochemical agents and seeking to procure nuclear weapons. That too was a fabrication --- the freakish miscreation of paranoia or, worse, ruse.

The invasion ignited the Iraqi insurgency and fueled the civil war between Sunni and Shia. Al-Qaeda exploited the conflict to recruit disciples, offering evidence to jihadists worldwide that America is waging war against Islam and providing the training ground for a new generation of cutthroats.

More than 3,000 Americans lost their lives.

Iraqi casualties, deliberately underreported (“We don’t count body bags.” --- General Tommy Franks) --- now at 34,000 --- do not include 36,000 civilians wounded in attacks who later died or people kidnapped whose fate is unknown. Nearly two million Iraqis fled to neighboring countries, and 1.6 million were displaced internally. About 100,000 Iraqis take refuge in Syria and Jordan each month.

Meanwhile, the report of the Iraq Study Group reveals that the U.S. filtered out reports of violence in order to disguise its policy failings in Iraq.

The financial cost of the war is staggering. Last September, over $379 billion were allocated by Congress, of which $355 billion were spent in January alone. The current rate of expenditure in Iraq is $6.4 billion a month. Economists estimate that the war has so far cost American taxpayers between $1 trillion and $2 trillion.

You recently announced, "We have a new strategy with a new mission: Helping secure the population, especially in Baghdad. Our plan puts Iraqis in the lead."

You added, "But those who refuse to give this plan a chance to work have an obligation to offer an alternative that has a better chance for success" and frivolously argued that the Iraqi government must do its part “or lose the support of the Iraqi and American people."

This is a grotesque argument. You don’t blithely smash the crockery, Mr. President, and then ask the scullery maid to pick up the pieces. Americans never had the support of the Iraqi people and America’s tolerance for this macabre charade dissolved when the bouquets our troops were told to expect from crowds delirious with gratitude turned out to be funeral wreaths.      

It was inevitable that eroding support for the war and fading confidence in your governance would lead to demands that you pull out of this slaughterhouse. You kept mum for a while but eventually conceded that bipartisan pressure to mop up the blood and bring the troops home was being exerted.

In response, you made halfhearted allusions indicating a possible pullout in spring 2006. A couple of weeks later the pullout was pushed to fall 2006 --- "at the earliest." Chatter that only 30,000 troops might be brought home left America perplexed as to the fate of the other 120,000 troops now deployed in Iraq.

Last August, you dismissed the reports of a planned withdrawal as "rumors."

Mr. President, you are either a consummate prevaricator or your prompters keep changing their minds the way I change socks. Judging from your hesitant delivery and often-incoherent evasions, you may be the victim of your own vacuity.

America has made (and continues to spawn) enemies. Such blunder, you have illogically concluded, necessitates the deployment of an ever-larger military strike force. Mr. President, the enemy waits for America to spread itself thin as the body bags make the lugubrious trek home and posthumous medals adorn flags folded into neat triangles of sham sympathy. Americans are tired of standing still as tears of grief and outrage irrigate the land.

You asked us to give the war a chance. Three years of “chance” have diluted our patience and our trust. You bankrupted us and broke our hearts. It is time for you to:

·        Confess publicly that the war was inspired by monstrous ego, greed and the urge to flex imperialistic muscle, that it was a fatal mistake that galvanized al-Qaeda, heightened terrorism worldwide and inspired insurgent violence in the Middle East.

·        Apologize to America for seven years of obstinacy and crass unconcern for the wishes and well being of Americans.        

·        Kneel before every family that lost a soldier and every soldier who came home from this obscenity maimed or emotionally traumatized.

·        Ask the Iraqi people for forgiveness for destroying their nation and inviting chaos and death.

·        Bring the troops home. 

·        Surrrender to the International Court. You are wanted on charges of warmongering and crimes against humanity.

W. E. Gutman is a veteran journalist. He lives in southern California.

What they're saying about the Iraq War "surge"
Wallis, A criminal escalation of an unjust war
Gutman, Open letter to George W. Bush about the Iraq War
Silié, For peace and development in 2007
Birns, Chávez and Insulza get out of line
Watt, Ecuador says no
Cohen, Negroponte becomes Latin America's problem again
Bernal, Panama facing Poland's frequent fate?

Sirias, A tribute to Virgil Suárez

Jackson, Who's left?