Speaking of Iraq, President Bush made a farewell visit to that country today (via the NYT): Bush Makes Final Iraq Visit
Air Force One arrived in Baghdad at 4 p.m. after a 10-and-a-half-hour overnight flight from Andrews Air Force Base near Washington. It was Mr. Bush’s fourth visit to IraqOn arriving here, he met the two senior American officials, Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker and Gen. Ray Odierno, on the tarmac. He met with Iraqi leaders and was expected to meet with American troops.
Jules Crittenden calls this a “Victory Lap” which strikes me as a stretch, to put it kindly. There is, of course, the report I noted earlier then there’s the fact that, like other trips to Iraq by the President and other high-ranking US official, this one, too, had to be a secret:
As with previous visits — in November 2003, June 2006 and September 2007 — preparations for the visit were secretive and carried out with ruse. The White House schedule for Sunday had Mr. Bush attending the “Christmas in Washington” performance at the National Building Museum in downtown Washington. Instead, he left the White House by car on Saturday night, arriving at Andrews at 9 p.m. Air Force One remained inside its immaculate hangar until moments before taking off. A dozen journalists accompanying him were only told of the trip on Friday and allowed to tell only a superior and a spouse — and only in person.
One would think that if security was sufficiently improved that Bush could run a “victory lap” over Iraq that it wouldn’t have to be a secret reinforced by misdirection
The best that the NYT could note was that it was a daylight landing, rather than a nighttime one:
Bush’s arrival here during daylight hours had been one measure of progress; his first visit on Thanksgiving Day 2003 took place entirely at night.
An improvement, yes? Cause for a “victory lap”? I think not.
I would be far more impressed if a trip by a major US official didn’t require secrecy.
Crittenden isn’t the only one calling it a “victory lap”: see, for example, Dean Esmay who, along with Don Surber, is also resurrecting “Mission Accomplished”.
Then, of course, there is the whole jounralist-throws-a-shoe-at-Bush bit (also noted in the NYT piece linked above).
Here’s CNN’s report:
Video via Think Progress.
Give Bush credit, his line about the shoes being size tens was pretty good.
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December 14th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
It’s been an ongoing process the last few years of watching the war defeatists constantly have to revise downward why they think Iraq is a “mess” and a “failure.” When we’re down to saying “he had to make it a surprise visit because security’s not quite as good in Baghdad as in London yet,” and “someone threw a shoe at him,” it’s over.
This is the equivalent of saying that Harry Truman was a failure because North Korea still exists and we still have troops in South Korea today. Just as we will continue to have troops in Iraq, likely for a similar period of time. Which is what most intelligent proponents of our humanitarian intervention there thought was going to happen all along.
December 14th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
By the way, Think Progress? If they were really thinking about human progress they would be backing this very vital and necessary progressive humanist mission in Iraq.
They don’t think progress at all, they’re stodgy partisan reactionaries.
December 14th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
Enormous progress has been made in Iraq. I’m absolutely sick of it being called a disaster. In terms of our military history it hasn’t been the smoothest road we’ve run, but it’s hardly been the roughest.
Having done tours there myself, I know what the people of Iraq were living with before the invasion and there is no way anyone can tell me they were better off. We’ve done a good thing there, even if it has been done in a roundabout way. Forward progress will continue in Iraq as long as we remain dedicated to the cause.
The fact that security precautions were taken over Bush’s visit means we have been defeated in Iraq is a bizarre train of logic. All it means is that the threat analysis in Iraq is greater than the threat analysis in San Diego or London. That will probably always be true, even when Iraq stabilizes into a reliable regional ally. Just being sandwiched between Syria and Iran means it will always be relatively easy for agents of those countries or terrorists that are harbored by them to slip in and make trouble.
December 14th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
Dean,
It is hardly being a “war defeatist” to think that we can’t say the either “victory” (whatever that means at this point) has been achieved or that the mission has been accomplished. Things are decidedly better than they were at the height of the post-war violence, but the story of post-war Iraq has yet to be written and it is wholly unclear that a functional state is in place, let alone one that will persist (or that will persist in the interest of the US). If anything this war has strengthened Iran’s position in the region, which is hardly in the US’ national interest. Apart from removing Saddam from power (something I don’t regret, but question the cost thereof), what, exactly, has been accomplished, especially in terms of our initial goals in the region?
And seriously: the fact that it is unsafe for the President (or the SecDef, etc.) to land in Iraq save under the cover of secrecy does bespeak of a situation that is far from fixed. To dismiss that fact is to dismiss the still incomplete development of the Iraqi state and its inability to properly provide basic security.
I did not state, btw, that the shoe incident meant much of anything.
And I found the video at Think Progress–am I not supposed to give credit because you don’t like the site? Really, even bringing that up is deflecting the issue at hand, as I didn’t even quote TP on the subject.
Captain D: I never called Iraq a “disaster” in the post. I simply called into serious question the notion that a “victory lap” was warranted.
I will say that it has been far from a success, unless one narrowly defines the term. If anything, I stand by may statement that it was not worth the cost.
And, as I stated this morning, I initially supported the policy.
December 14th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
Put it all in very simply terms: if this is a victory lap, exactly what was won?
December 14th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
Do you think Iraq’s future looks worse now than it did before we intervened?
In my eyes, if the place is, or even has the potential to become better than it was under Saddam Hussein - that’s something that was won.
If you think Iraq’s future would have been better under Saddam Hussein and whoever would have succeeded him when he eventually died, I will concede that nothing has been won.
The way I see it, the removal of those nifty state sponsored rape rooms by itself constitutes a victory.
December 14th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
And along those lines -
In Iraq, things like torture, rape, and rampaging death squads are the work of illegitimate organizations.
Previously, they were state policy.
I think that’s something of an improvement; I think that’s something significant that has been won.
December 14th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
I think, in truth, we don’t know what Iraq’s future will be, as I am not yet convinced a stable state exists there. We may not know for sure until the US has withdrawn. That an ally of Iran may be the net result of the invasion should give you pause for thought when we talk about “victory laps.”
However, I agree that it is good that the previous regime is gone–that doesn’t mean that it was necessarily, in retrospect, the right thing to have done. If we are going to start intervening militarily just to rid a given state of a host of horrors, then we have a lot of intervening to do.
Aren’t you the one who said the other day about Zimbabwe:
If the alleviation of human suffering is what US foreign policy is to be about, you are contradicting yourself.
Plus, if success in Iraq is to be defined solely by the removal of the Saddam regime, then why did we stay after it was felled? Why are we talking about victory now years after the capture of Saddam?
December 14th, 2008 at 8:30 pm
I don’t think we sould be measuring success in Iraq solely on the alleviation of human suffering, and never said so.
What I did say was that the alleviation of some suffering, and providing a population with a chance at a better future is a positive thing. It is something that we “won”. That was your question. What did we win? My answer is, we won the possibility of a better future for Iraq.
It may or may not be what we set out to do, but it is true, nonetheless. States do what is in their interest, not what is in some other states’ interest; but that doesn’t mean they don’t occasionally win an improvement for someone else, even if it’s by mistake. We did win something in Iraq, and it’s something worth mentioning, at least as a footnote. When you ask the question, “what did we win?” you suggest that nothing has been won; that may be your opinion but I see things a bit differently.
It is often said of our own revolutionary war that it was started in the North, fought in the South, and won by the French. Had the French not intervened in the latter part of our war, we might not have achieved independence. The French had no idea really what the repercussions of what they were doing would be, and it was certainly not sympathy for us that stirred them to action. They waited to see if we had a chance, and when they saw that things might go our way, they acted decisively to ensure that they did - but it was only to weaken their current adversary for global power (England) and to spit in the eye of King George. Does their intent to give England a black eye make our achievement of independence any less sweet for us? Does the fact that England, not France, continued to dominate western civilization in spite of France’s action in our indepdence movement mean that our independence isn’t something that was won?
Clearly, if the achieving the stated objective is the only criteria for any victory, our revoluation was a horrible failure. France did not achieve its goal. It did not replace England as the dominant global power. So that means we lost, right?
I think the fact that you and I are sitting here in our American homes and offices, freely exchanging these ideas speaks of a victory for us.
So, to me, Iraq is different from the nations of Africa to me because there was, at the time we went in, a lot of fear and hatred of the Hussein Regime. There had been multiple organized attempts by groups operating in the North and the South to oust him. That’s largely why we set up the no fly zones and took other measures after the first Gulf war. We were hoping that those groups would be able to get the job done on their own - with a bit of support from us.
Political opposition in the nasty places in Africa is disjointed and chaotic at best. Zimbabwe does not have an active popular resistance to the Mugabe goverment, only rival lords who would be just as bad as, or worse, than Mugabe. The population is more poorly educated than Iraq’s, with a very high rate of illiteracy. It is not a state that can realisically be expected to support a democratic government anytime soon. THAT is why it should be left alone. THAT is why it needs to be left to fail. The conditions on the ground would not support a democratic regime even if we put one there.
Furthermore, I see no way in which alleviating the human condition in Africa would serve America’s interests. There are many, many ways that change in Iraq has served America’s interests. The largest and most obvious is that by presenting a short-range threat to islamic terror groups, we all but eliminated their capactity to conduct long-range operations.
So - my answer, in a roundabout way, is that I think Iraq and Zimbabwe are apples and oranges. We always had a higher probability of success in Iraq than we ever would in Zimbabwe. And right now we don’t have an interest in fixing things in Zimbabwe; intevention there would be a Somalia-esque debacle that would accomplish nothing. We had a chance in Iraq, and we still do. Whether or not the war was started under the correct pretenses does not change the fact that we can achieve a positive endstate there.
It is possible for states to win things that are good for other states for entirely selfish reasons. Whatever it is that we set out to do in Iraq, it is nevertheless the case that what we ended up with is a place that is far from perfect but has very good prospects for becoming a better place for its people. Where there was no end to tyranny on the horizon, now there is the possibility of a measure of freedom and safety, at least, from government oppression of the Hussein variety.
Like the French in America’s war for independence, we may leave a lasting, positive, and world-changing mark in Iraq, even if it wasn’t exactly what we set out to do.
I see that as something won.
December 14th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
Do you think Iraq’s future looks worse now than it did before we intervened?
Iraq’s recent past is worse for our intervening. Whether or not things would have improved without our intervention is impossible to know.
In Iraq, things like torture, rape, and rampaging death squads are the work of illegitimate organizations.
Not quite right. Our senate has concluded that our most senior officials were responsible for torture and rape, which led to others using that to kill more. It’s on Bush’s head no matter how you slice it.
Furthermore, I see no way in which alleviating the human condition in Africa would serve America’s interests.
And that is the difference. Shortsightedness in Africa has allowed the Chinese to move into the continent in a big way. By hoping that the government in Sudan holds some information that would help our security, we have let the worst of the worst happen there. We have little credibility in Africa, but goodwill on their part is abundant, for the most part.
Wrecking a nation, Iraq, that had been disabled for years, should have been easy, but shouldn’t have been done. It was a waste and no lipstick will make it look prettier. Joining with South Africa and the other strong democracies in Africa will reap benefits for generations.
December 15th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
Michelle,
If you refer to the occasional infraction of one of our troops in crimes of rape and torture, let me remind you of something - those people were all tried and punished for their crimes, and they do not, as you put it, represent the command policies of their units.
The difference between Iraq now and Iraq before the war is that we commit evil when we break our rules. Before, they were committing evil when they followed them.
If you can’t see that, you’re too blinded by bias and hate to render a fair and logical opinion. You’ve also obviously not been involved, as I have, in military action in Africa and Iraq.
As such, your credibility is, to put it gently, nonexistent. Good luck with that talking about things you don’t understand gig; I hope it takes you far in life. You could probably get a seat in the Senate yourself for the right price - just call up the governor of Illinois.
December 16th, 2008 at 7:53 am
My first thought on seeing the actual video was that Bush must have always been picked first for dodgeball when he was a kid. That was a pretty agile shoe-dodge.
December 16th, 2008 at 8:29 am
Yep–he showed some skills, as they say.
December 16th, 2008 at 9:07 am
“In Iraq, things like torture, rape, and rampaging death squads are the work of illegitimate organizations.
Previously, they were state policy.”
Meaning that before they were carried out by paid and uniformed government/official party officials.
Now they’re carried out by paid and unpaid, uniformed and plainclothes, government officials and milita members who are the support for the government parties.
Sorta like being killed by Blackwater is different from being killed by US troops or federal agents.
December 16th, 2008 at 9:14 am
Dean Esmay: “It’s been an ongoing process the last few years of watching the war defeatists constantly have to revise downward why they think Iraq is a “mess” and a “failure.” When we’re down to saying “he had to make it a surprise visit because security’s not quite as good in Baghdad as in London yet,” and “someone threw a shoe at him,” it’s over. ”
It’s been an ongoing process watching the war supporters revise the reasons and goals of the war. We were originally going to protect ourselves from the ‘worse than Hitler!’ Saddam and his stash of WMD’s, while sprading democracy and loyalty to Israel across the Middle East.
Now, having established a mass murdering, ethnic cleansing, torture happy kleptocracy whose factions got power by organizing militias to, um, ‘get out the vote’ is considered ‘victory’. A few hundred thousand dead Iraqis are considered both worth the price and quite deniable. God only knows how many hundreds of billions of dollars wasted and stolen is, of course, a Good Thing for right-wingers - otherwise it might have ended up in the pockets of auto workers, and that would have been doubleplus ungood.