Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal: A Weblog: The Pathetic Plight of the Grownup Republican, Part XVI: Brent Scowcroft

September 01, 2004

The Pathetic Plight of the Grownup Republican, Part XVI: Brent Scowcroft

Andrew Rice interviews Brent Scowcroft:

Brent Scowcroft Calls Iraq War ‘overreaction’: "Look, I’m a friend of this administration," Mr. Scowcroft said. "I love the father. So do I want to do things which complicate [matters for] them? No. But do I feel that there are some things that it’s important to get out? Yes."... Mr. Bush may have "overreacted" to the threat of Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, said Mr. Scowcroft... squandered opportunities to avoid war in Iraq, said Mr. Scowcroft... speculated that the Bush administration had exaggerated the threat of weapons of mass destruction because it provided "the only reason which you could use to propel a war [in] a particular time frame.".. fighting in Iraq made it impossible for the administration to confront nations much closer to actually acquiring nuclear weapons... skepticism about the prospects for gunship democracy....

Mr. Scowcroft was ignored, America went to war, and many of the dangers he had warned of came to pass.... [W]ith Iraq turning into a gruesome slog and despair mounting in conservative circles... Mr. Scowcroft is looking like a prophet... John Kerry’s foreign-policy advisors happily call themselves "Scowcroftian."...

"If you look at many of the things [George W. Bush] said... in 2000... dramatically different from the way the administration has behaved... humbler foreign policy... consideration for our allies, shying away from... nation-building.... It’s possible that the... current President, who is a very religious person, thought that there was something unique, if not divine, about a catastrophe like 9/11 happening when he was President. That somehow that was meant to be... his mission... to deal with... terrorism"....

"I’m not sure how much [George W. Bush] is driven by... wanting to be re-elected—maybe more than most Presidents do—because his father was defeated. And I think it’s not impossible that, freed from that demand, he might behave somewhat differently." In other words, even at this late date, Mr. Scowcroft sees some reason to hope that this son, like most sons, will eventually evolve into his father....

Mr. Scowcroft and Ms. Rice had bitter words after Mr. Scowcroft went public with his criticism of the Iraq war.... In public, Mr. Scowcroft takes care to praise Ms. Rice for her "brilliant mind," but when asked to assess her job performance, he said he would prefer not to comment.... Mr. Scowcroft has been proven right about a lot of the things: He was skeptical about the existence of Saddam Hussein’s nuclear program and of its relationship to Al Qaeda; he warned that fighting a war in Iraq could prove a distraction to the rest of the war on terror, creating animosity and hurting alliances....

"One of the interesting issues is the degree to which the expertise of the previous Bush administration has been drawn on, and my answer to that question is: I think not much," said Lawrence Eagleburger, a former Secretary of State under the first President Bush....

Posted by DeLong at September 1, 2004 07:58 PM | TrackBack

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fighting in Iraq made it impossible for the administration to confront nations much closer to actually acquiring nuclear weapons...

Yes. This is what makes me think anyone who calls themselves a 'hawk' and thinks or thought the Iraq war was a good idea is an idiot. We have burned through enormous resources -- not just in war fighting materiel and soldiers, but in trust and international willingness to assist us -- in the pursuit of a non-threat. While the real threats built up their own power.

All those idiot warhawks and 'liberal hawk' columnists preening about how well, maybe the war isn't going so well, but at least they were macho enough to want it? They got fucking conned. Rooked. By a con job that had all the obviousness of three-card monte. These are the people that would buy the Brooklyn Bridge. You had some of these numbskulls repeating with breathless adoration how Saddam might have nukes! Must fight must! When even the most basic level of knowledge of nuclear weapon production revealed how ludicrous that idea was; nuclear weapons production requires a scale of production that cannot be hidden, especially not from inspectors crisscrossing your country.

They aren't macho; they are *gullible.* And the idea that they should continue to have any input into public policy is laughable.

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