The astonishing story, Bush at War by Bob Woodward (washingtonpost.com), must leave Britons wondering who exactly is this friend to whom Tony Blair is giving such blind loyalty. The book recounts events in and round the White House from September 11 almost to the present day. It helps to explain the agonised U-turns required of British diplomacy over this period. American policy has veered between the Secretary of State, Colin Powell, and the Vice-President and Defence Secretary, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. The President, a complex man, is depicted struggling to hold the ring.
Next week peace hangs in the balance. On November 27 UN weapons inspectors return to the notorious Iraqi sites. Enough Saddam defiance has been declared enough. If the inspectors are balked, the UN’s “military arm”, America, stands ready to enforce the law, by means and authority yet to be determined.
This much we know. But even seeking a UN resolution in November was by no means a foregone conclusion. It was the outcome of head-to-head combat between General Powell and the Cheney/Rumsfeld faction in league with the President’s adviser, Karl Rove. The latter group wanted to go straight to war with Saddam this winter. They did not give a damn for General Powell’s UN, for Middle East peace, for European or Arab opinion or for anyone. All was a distraction from the one obsession, toppling Saddam.
Bush at War depicts an Administration first in disarray over Afghanistan, when air bombing was getting nowhere and, as usual, nobody wanted to commit ground troops. The stalemate was bizarrely broken with a $70 million CIA bribe to the warlords to move on Kabul (with Russian weapons). Woodward portrays a President with “gut instincts” rather than coherent thoughts, his latest a determination to topple North Korea’s Kim Jong-Il. These instincts are exploited by Mr Rumsfeld, whose narrow vision, personal insecurity and animosity towards colleagues render him unfit for office.
Not until August did General Powell finally gain private access to Mr Bush. He pleaded against the hawks, deploying the warnings against them of the first President Bush’s aides and, crucially, the chaos that would threaten America if other Arab states were not brought onside. Going it alone was simply “not on”. The only game in town was the UN. Mr Bush was persuaded.
Yet as General Powell drove Mr Bush down the “UN route”, Cheney/Rumsfeld fought him all the way. We read of Mr Rumsfeld staring the general down across the table, of General Powell being ordered “into the icebox” and not appearing in public, of the hawks doctoring the President’s UN Autocue, omitting a key Powell phrase. We read of Mr Rumsfeld’s Service chiefs so disliking him as to brief General Powell behind his back. Even in the past week, with the general in the ascendant, Cheney/Rumsfeld have abused the inspectors and said that America may go to war irrespective of the UN because of Iraqi potshots at coalition jets. Bush at War is an ongoing saga.
All governments argue about what to do. That is good. Debate is the only sure defence against error. But governments in foreign affairs customarily argue in private. Only behind a façade of unity can a nation appear determined and an enemy be deterred. How might Hitler have reacted had he known of the rows between Churchill, Alanbrook and their generals? Such disputes once surfaced only in memoirs and histories. Even the Gulf War arguments attended on victory.
These arguments are now in “real time”. Woodward’s book is based on recorded interviews with Mr Bush, General Powell and other participants, conducted in the swirl of events. These men were not indulging in the statesman’s “pre-emptive memoir”. Nor were they using the tactical leak familiar to modern government. They were using a contemporary historian to test and validate their strategies against their internal enemies. They were seeking the endorsement of history before the war was over, indeed even begun.
I find this ironic. This is the sort of democratic government much beloved of the far Left. Tony Benn would applaud. It is government of the people, by the people, bang in front of the people. The people are empowered because they can hear the howls of anguish and whoops of joy from the corridors of power, and respond through polls or focus groups.
This must be high risk. Journalist though I may be, I cannot ignore the fact that total disclosure destroys confidence and bruises collective responsibility. It is why the 18th-century Parliament was not reported, and when it was, why Cabinet secrecy took its place. The removal of confidentiality from private discussion renders individuals unable to compromise or defend agreed positions without humiliation. It requires frank opinions to be shared in private, and outcomes defended in public. How can Mr Cheney or Mr Rumsfeld now allow General Powell another victory? How will they undermine him next time? It makes all debate macho. When General Powell wondered if he should complain to the President, an aide said: “You gotta do it, they’re cheesing on you.”
The advent of battlefield TV led many to doubt whether democracies could ever win “fighting wars”. Vietnam was not lost on the ground but in the living rooms of America. When the going gets tough, as in Lebanon and Somalia, American democracy finds it desperately hard to sustain such overseas adventures. That is the price of openness.
But that was openness in battle. The new openness exposes diplomatic processes that depend on bluff and counter-bluff, on unity, will and deterrence. This demands collective leadership. I am sure the last thing the general meant was to have Saddam cheering his plea that war without the Saudis, Jordanians and Egyptians on board would be madness. Yet by disclosing this view, the Secretary of State must have weakened the deterrent effect of America’s current deployment and with it the effectiveness of weapons inspection.
General Powell’s disclosure must in turn have forced the Cheney/Rumsfeld faction into upping their sabre-rattling if only to ensure that Saddam should not, after all, doubt America’s resolve. So back and forth they go. With Mr Bush blowing hot and cold for each faction, the world is bemused. If General Powell really believes some of his colleagues are a threat to global peace, what should the rest of us think if they win the next round? Will Tony Blair still support the hawks against the general?
British critics of US foreign policy wrongly assume there is one America. There rarely is. The warmongering of the Washington hawks is not reflected in any measure of widespread US opinion. Polls suggest that most people share General Powell’s insistence on multilateral action through the UN. It is backed by the one-time hawk, General Wesley Clark of Kosovo, in this month’s Prospect magazine. He pleads that America’s global power has always been rooted in its talent for alliances, however inconvenient: “It would be a tragedy if we walk away from 60 years of postwar experience.”
The decision to “take the UN route” was not, as British commentators fondly believe, Mr Blair persuading Mr Bush. It was America arguing with itself, and doing so in the highest echelons of government. The argument was clearly fierce and articulate. What Woodward shows is how fragile it remains.
Many Europeans believe that the biggest danger to world peace at present is not Saddam but Washington’s wilful exaggeration of his capability and intentions. America may be divided over this exaggeration. But the outcome is not really in Saddam’s hands. He and his people are pawns in an unresolved argument between two Americas. One is an America of judicious multilateralists, trying to measure a perceived threat and respond appropriately. The other is an America fearful, paranoid and reacting to fear with a disproportionate belligerence.
Like good democrats, Washington’s leaders have decided to innovate. They are conducting their argument amid full public disclosure. It is extraordinary. The test will not be of American power, but of American democracy.
sjenkins@thetimes.co.uk
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