Bush vs. The National Security Professionals
Larry Johnson and many readers participating in the TPM Book Club have commented on my new book, “How Bush Rules: Chronicles of a Radical Regime” about their surprise or lack of it at the emergence of Bush’s thoroughgoing radicalism. One aspect of his radicalism that I describe at length is his war on the national security professionals. This is a largely unnoticed but critical part of his regime. His efforts to suppress internal debate, discussion and objective analysis are essential to his creation of executive power and an imperial presidency. Bush’s war on the professionals is an ongoing battle within the government. Certainly, they were among the most startled of all by Bush’s radicalism. Many of them expected that this Bush would be like his father. Needless to say, their expectations have been dashed.
Now, in his attempt to impose a policy of torture, after the Supreme Court has struck down his kangaroo courts for detainees and upheld U.S. obligation to Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions against torture, Bush is engaged in a fierce fight with senior military and the judge advocates general. William Haynes, the radical general counsel of the Defense Department and an indispensable ally of Vice President Dick Cheney’s operation, called in the top military prosecutors, the leading JAGs, demanding that they sign a statement supporting Bush’s torture policy. They resisted this Soviet-like style effort at intimidation. The senior military cannot make their opposition known through public outcry or campaigning, so their disagreement is voiced through Republican senators on the Armed Services Committee, and through Colin Powell, former Secretary of State and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who issued a public letter declaring that the “moral” basis of Bush’s “war on terror” has been cast into “doubt” by his advocacy of torture.
Bush has relentlessly sought to enforce his ideology dogma by clamping down on national security professional objective analyses and reports. The history of Bush in Iraq, before and after the invasion, can be written as a chronicle of quashing information and replacing it with disinformation. Bush has punished the CIA and the intelligence community for its assertions of professionalism by his appointment of Porter Goss as director, giving him an order to purge it. Bush, Cheney and the neocons consider any hint of adherence to professional standards that may contradict their preconceptions as subversive partisanship. To the extent that the CIA or other intelligence agencies or the State Department have provided reports at odds with their intentions and scenarios they are seen as the enemy within that must be ruthlessly crushed.
The analysis and reports of the professionals and the processes by which these reports make their way through the bureaucracies in each department and agency and then in interagency meetings, percolating up to the top by responsible officials who prudently insist on empirical evidence, expertise and considering all options, especially worst-case ones, are a significant check and balance within the executive branch against the arrogance of power. This inner check is hardly always a fail-safe mechanism. The bureaucracy is filled with politics and nobody is error proof. Still, there are reasons for rules, standards and regular practices, which are based on institutional experience, effectiveness and the need to curb mere opinion, emotion and special pleading. Bush, however, has made blunders more likely by stifling the professionals. Indeed, his radicalism has set him at war against the professionals in national security. His battle over his torture policy is the latest chapter in his struggle to smash those who adhere to traditional American values within our government.
This is certainly the case.
I often wonder if retribution by the CIA for the Bush heavy-handed, over-wrought hammering of the CIA by Goss and his "abrasive" sidekick who actually fired the CIA professionals came in the form of the referral to the Justice Department of the leak of Valerie Plame's name.
Given the bologna that Toensing, Novak and the right wing commandos are throwing at Fitzgerald, Armitage and Corn -- all aimed at muddying the prosecutorial waters in which Libby and his boss the Vice President are currently treading, it seems that what was achieved was a lot of huge legal bills.
If Libby actually goes to trial, he won't serve time. And what's more he won't have paid a single dime because all his millionaire Republican pals have anted up a ton of money for his legal defense.
The unknown is Cheney. Will he have to testify or will he be able to cite national security and laugh it off. He is after all worth about $170 million.
How come the right wing echo chamber doesn't remember what Dick Armey said:
September 18, 2006 7:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
Suetonius has a very nice account that applies prophetically to GW Bush - I believe it's chapter 6.
September 18, 2006 7:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's bizarre that the CIA is actually a mighty arm of executive branch power - a lynchpin of "The National Security State" so named by Chomsky - yet Bush somehow views it as the enemy within the executive branch. I guess it's like a damn fool General who ignores the advice of his most seasoned veterans.
The tightanic imbalance in the so called checks and balance of the constitution created by Harry Truman in 1947 is now coming home to roost. We just needed a psycopath like Bush to come along and show how much it could be exploited.
This is specifically the kind of thing the founding fathers knew would happen with an American King. The office already attracts the most power-mad, egomaniacal people on earth, and then with more and more and more and more power offered up to the glorious leader in times of 'crisis,' just creates a vicious circle.
Look at what the hubub is about: creating a 'crisis' for 'war footing' in Iran. This is the most tyrannical crew I've ever seen. They make Nixon look like a Libertarian.
September 18, 2006 10:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is not new to George W but it has gone to an unprecedented level. Senator McCarthy started the process in the early 1950s by harassing and ending the careers of most of the professional Foreign Service Officers who disagreed with the party line on China. The "China Hands" were all ostracized for knowing too much about what was happening in a foreign country and daring to communicate that to a government with a different agenda. They "lost China" by communicating inconvenient truths. Ever since, the lack of loyalty of the State Department has been an article of faith for Republicans.
This administration carried this to a new level of absurdity in Iraq by failing to listen to "the experts" on intelligence matters and also by screening out "the experts" in development and country building from Iraq so that a new Iraq could be built according to principles of Republican political correctness. The results of this field test of the those principles are plain to see. It is the largest disaster of its kind since the Russian and Chinese governments' reliance on Lysenkoism and ideology instead of science and expertise.
September 18, 2006 10:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
September 18, 2006 11:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
Al Franken and James Fallows talked on Franken's show this morning about some of this. Listening only intermittently, I picked up at one point their serious conversation about the extent to which intelligence work has been outsourced to private contractors around the world. The CIA is left increasingly with management work.
Franken (I'm paraphrasing) said, his humorous voice kicking in: My god! So some of these private contractors could in fact be working with Al Qaeda or even be part of AQ!
I can just see it now,Franken went on, there's a terrifying screw up and it all comes out, that the Administration outsourced our intelligence work to AQ. Press conference. At which point the Administration responds, wearily, That's old news! We need to move on...
September 18, 2006 12:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, I meant not that Harry S. Truman created the Constitution, but the imbalance.
September 18, 2006 3:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
I just read Bob Baer's novel, "Blow the House Down" and he has outsourced counter-intellligence in his plot. Sounds like it's for real, if Fallows and others are talking about it. In the story the outsourced work was physical surveillance.
September 18, 2006 5:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
What is the Great Surprise !?
I knew from 1999 why he was Chosen, and where he would go.
From the very start, bush was conceibved as the best vehicle for the Heritage Foundation, CEI, AEI, etc., types to b ring about their long cherished goal of:
REPOSING ALL "LEGITIMATE" AUTHORITY IN THE UNITED STATES IN PROPERTY RATHER THAN IN THE HANDS OF MERE VOTERS !
He was seen by Aggregate Wealth as the Best Bet to be a Trojan Horse for their Full Ayn Rand agenda....deceptively gift wrapped in the very religious vestments that AYN Detested !
But hey, how else to get the American people to give up their soul and the soul of their country to the Extremist "Property Rights" Fanatics who view the Public Library and Fire Codes as as infringements on "Liberty", than to proclaim it in Jesus' name, even as the wretched Ayn mocked Jesus.
September 18, 2006 5:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm certainly no Bush backer, but one thing I cannot understand about the Democrats is why they can't come to terms with this president.
People like Mr. Blumenthal (among many others) do a great job in highlighting the corrupt atmosphere surrounding this administration.
My point, though, is simple: Bush is a rogue president.
There has never been an administration quite like his and there will likely never again be one (at least not for a very long time).
In fact, many presidential historians compare the mundane corruptness of this administration to the that of the Grant Administration.
Grant was president over a century ago, folks.
Rather than wasting so much time and effort pointing out what is blatantly obvious to every sane person, why not focus this energy on what we can do once his term blissfully comes to an end?
In all honesty, the GOP should not even have a fighting chance in this year's elections. Yet they do.
Why?
Because the Democrats simply cannot get over the Bush trap. It's like a cat being lured to the pan of antifreeze.
It's almost as if a house is ablaze with a family trapped inside. Rather than finding ways to get the people out, the bystanders merely run around the block pointing out that there is a house on fire and that the sheriff is the one who started it.
Meanwhile, everyone burns to death.
We can deal with the sheriff and his clan later, people. We'll know where to find them clearing brush in 2009.
September 18, 2006 8:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Of course, these are minor quibbles, but Bush just happens to have the largest and most lethal military, the greatest ability to transport that military quickly to any part of the world, the most dangerous, planet-endangering weaponry, the hugest financial support, the craziest concept of world history and religion, the most obvious disdain for the Constitution,the tightest hold on public information, the greatest ability to spy on and manipulate the lives of average citizens, and the most debatable (and galling) democratic claim to the presidency of any so far.
That enough to explain why we silly people can't come to terms with him?
September 19, 2006 8:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
Good points GB.
But I think you conflate the politicians with this author. He can't really do much in the way of stopping Bush's joy ride, but at least he can detail it. Spreading the word has its place.
I think the kind of paralysis you speak of occurs more with Democratic congressmen and Senators. I think it was mentioned on the blog side last week that DC Dems have to do more than keep crying that these people don't even come close to playing by the rules - and by rules we mean the Constitution, not just some obscure decorum.
With the years, the dismal record of performance has now become grist for the D.C. Dem mill, so they can just point out that the stategery is not ineffective - and that the BushCo. tyranny crew is simply incompetent.
September 19, 2006 11:12 AM | Reply | Permalink