Saving Iraq For 2004

With reams of disinformation spewing from Washington--much of it designed to keep the odious Saddam Hussein off balance, some of it scripted to torpedo resumption of U.N. arms inspections, it is difficult to separate fact from fiction in the administration's plans for Iraq. But one thing is clear: Bush is bent on war.

Tom DeLay's hyper-jingoistic August 21 speech -- "The question is not whether to go to war, for war has already been thrust upon us ... the only choice is between victory and defeat" -- was, according to pundit Mark Shields, prepared in careful collaboration with Condoleeza Rice, the president's hawkish national security adviser. And Dick Cheney's August 26 speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars -- mocking the notion of resumed inspections and all but declaring (without any supporting evidence) that Saddam has nukes -- made it crystal clear to any doubters that Dubya and his civilian cronies in the military-industrial complex have made up their minds.

That the superhawks won the debate within the administration has been clear ever since early June, when the White House dumped its principal military anti-terrorism counselor, Deputy National Security Adviser Wayne Downing, over his opposition to a long and destructive air-and-ground campaign in Iraq. But history will undoubtedly record the defining moment as Bush's Iraq-driven June 1 speech at West Point, which has received insufficient attention. In it, Bush outlined the most radical change in military doctrine since the dawn of the Cold War, consigning deterrence and containment to the dustbin and affirming the U.S. readiness to take "pre-emptive action" (a euphemism for aggression). The result of a year-long reflection by the Bushies, the speech prefigured the Cheney and DeLay's first-strike drum-beating.

With Bush decided on a "pre-emptive" war, the only question is: When?

Despite musings in some quarters about a November Surprise, or an all-out military campaign next spring, there is every reason to believe that the war on Iraq will be timed for maximum effect on Bush's re-election in 2004. The White House reasons that a full-scale invasion of Iraq -- the only way to secure its professed goal of "regime change" -- will reignite the nationalist fervor unleashed by the 9/11 attacks, guaranteeing the continued quiescence of the Democrats and sending the president's approval ratings (now around 65 percent in most polls) back into the stratosphere.

The tanking of the economy -- too slow so far to offer any measurable improvement of the Democrats' chances in November, but likely to have accelerated by 2004 -- and the nagging Harken and Halliburton scandals' residual potential to tarnish the Bush-Cheney ticket, together mean that Bush will need to keep in reserve the option of lighting the counterfire of war fever to ensure his victory. (That's what Dubya meant when he proclaimed from Crawford, "I'm a patient man.")

The economic consequences of the war -- including soaring oil prices -- at the time of a metastasizing budget deficit (the Democratic-controlled Senate Budget Committee is already projecting a deficit of $400 billion-plus without the war) cannot be allowed to hit voters' pocketbooks until Bush's second term is assured. Nor can the stream of body bags (inevitable in the kind of air-ground campaign envisioned) be allowed to give pause too soon to voters used to the infinitesimal U.S. casualty rates of the Gulf and Afghanistan wars.

This is the most poll-driven administration in U.S. history -- even more so than during Clinton's Dick Morris period -- and the Bushies' readings of the numbers tell them the public is not yet ready for war. For example, the August 13 Washington Post/ABC poll showed that, when asked if war on Iraq meant "significant" U.S. casualties, support for it plummeted to 40 percent, while opposition rose to 51 percent. A CBS survey days later produced similar results. And the CNN poll taken near the end of August showed a one-month drop of almost nine points in support for the war.