Bush Policies Unravel

Support Plummets

by Max Elbaum

A morgue attendant attends to the unclaimed bodies of a slain Iraqi child and teenager at the Chawader hospital following a U.S. attack in Sadr City on April 5 in which seven U.S. soldiers and more than 50 Iraqis were killed.

Relatives of U.S. soldiers in Iraq, families of people killed on Sept. 11, Middle East experts and U.S. senators are all saying that President Bush's policies--and his credibility--are now in shambles.

The president's overall job approval rate has plummeted to 43 percent. And polls show that for the first time a majority in the U.S. disapprove of his policies in Iraq.

The White House has been shaken first and foremost by an explosion of Iraqi resistance. The New York Times reports that Washington is facing a massive insurgency that is "sweeping up thousands of people, Shiite and Sunni, in a loose coalition united by overwhelming anti-Americanism."

Senator Robert Byrd wrote in The Washington Post: "The United States has invested $121 billion so far in the war and reconstruction of Iraq, but chaos reigns in the streets… Clearly, the White House has lost control in Iraq."

Brittany Wood has a stepfather with the 101st Airborne Division in Iraq and supported Bush last year. She told The New York Times: "I was glad we were doing this because we need to help other countries fight for freedom, but now lots of people [in military families] feel there's been a cover-up, and we were not told the real reasons for being in Iraq."

At the same time, critics charge that the Aug. 6, 2001 classified memo released by the Bush administration proves that the White House seriously underestimated Al Qaeda.

LOSING ALLIES

The latest round of violence in Iraq has shattered Washington's claims of "great progress" there. The full-scale U.S. military assault on Fallujah has killed hundreds of civilians and sparked outrage even from supporters of U.S. policy.

The Washington Post reported that "a battalion of the new Iraqi army refused to go to Fallujah earlier this week to support U.S. Marines battling for control of the city. Perhaps 20 percent to 25 percent of the Iraqi army, civil defense, police and other security forces have quit, changed sides, or otherwise failed to perform their duties, a senior Army officer said."

Adnan Pachachi, perhaps the U.S.'s closest ally in Iraq, argued in a widely broadcast television interview: "It was not right to punish all the people of Fallujah, and we consider these operations by the Americans unacceptable and illegal."

Middle East expert Juan Cole reports that "there are rumors that many of the 25 Governing Council members have fled abroad…the ones who are left appear on the verge of resigning. This looks to me like an incipient collapse of the U.S. government of Iraq…. Many government workers in the ministries are on strike and refusing to show up for work."

Even top military officials from Britain--Washington's only major military ally--are condemning the U.S. crackdown. According to the Melbourne Age, "One senior officer said that America's aggressive methods were causing friction among allied commanders...The officer said part of the problem was that American troops viewed Iraqis as untermenschen--the Nazi expression for 'sub-humans.'"

INCENSED ABOUT 9/11

On the home front, Bush's under-pressure release of an August 2001 presidential briefing memo titled "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in U.S." has incensed Sept. 11 families and other critics. The text appears to contradict Condoleezza Rice's sworn public testimony that it was solely "historical."

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, "the memo appears to bolster the charge of former White House counter-terrorism official Richard Clarke, who contends that intelligence officials were amassing a growing pile of evidence suggesting an attack was coming."

Meanwhile, Bush's claim that his other occupation--in Afghanistan--is a "success" is also ringing hollow. The long-planned June election is now postponed due to "lack of security." The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime reports a surge in Afghan opium production, from less than 200 tons the year before the U.S. invasion to a record 3,600 tons in 2003 and projects another 25 to 50 percent increase for 2004.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh writes in the April 12 New Yorker that a study commissioned by the Pentagon has been "left in bureaucratic limbo" because "its conclusions proved negative--that the situation there [Afghanistan] is deteriorating rapidly."

One year after Bush claimed victory in Iraq, he is faced with daily renunciations of his policies from Fallujah to Kabul--and from Madrid to Washington, D.C.

Max Elbaum is author of Revolution in the Air and an editor of War Times.

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