Brent Scowcroft speaks out--Part 1

Introduction

For those who might not know who Brent Scowcroft is, here is some of his bio at the website of his company, The Scowcroft Group:

Brent Scowcroft has served as the National Security Advisor to both Presidents Ford and Bush. From 1982 to 1989, he was Vice Chairman of Kissinger Associates, Inc., an international consulting firm. In this capacity, he advised and assisted a wide range of U.S. and foreign corporate leaders on global joint venture opportunities, strategic planning, and risk assessment.

His prior extraordinary twenty-nine-year military career began with graduation from West Point and concluded at the rank of Lieutenant General following service as the Deputy National Security Advisor. His Air Force service included Professor of Russian History at West Point; Assistant Air Attaché in Belgrade, Yugoslavia; Head of the Political Science Department at the Air Force Academy; Air Force Long Range Plans; Office of the Secretary of Defense International Security Assistance; Special Assistant to the Director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Military Assistant to President Nixon.

Scowcroft recently gave an interview to Jeffrey Goldberg, and that interview provided the basis for Goldberg's article "Breaking Ranks" in the October 31, 2005, issue of The New Yorker. There is also an interview with Goldberg about the article. I will present some highlights and additional analysis.

Iraq in general

Naturally, Iraq is discussed at length in the article. Such discussion focuses first on the fact that many feel that the Bush 41 did not "finish the job" in the first Gulf War. Specifically, some people (namely the neocons) wanted to go to Baghdad and overthrow Saddam during the first Gulf War. Here is part of Scowcroft's response:

It would have been no problem for America’s military to reach Baghdad, he said. The problems would have arisen when the Army entered the Iraqi capital. “At the minimum, we’d be an occupier in a hostile land,” he said. “Our forces would be sniped at by guerillas, and, once we were there, how would we get out? What would be the rationale for leaving? I don’t like the term ‘exit strategy’–but what do you do with Iraq once you own it?”

And then Scowcroft stated the obvious:

“This is exactly where we are now,” he said of Iraq, with no apparent satisfaction. “We own it. And we can’t let go. We’re getting sniped at. Now, will we win? I think there’s a fair chance we’ll win. But look at the cost.”

Actually, I think it is more instructive to look at the benefit in comparison to the cost, but that analysis will come later.

Invading Iraq was not necessary.

From "Breaking Ranks":

Like nearly everyone in Washington, Scowcroft believed Saddam maintained stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, but he wrote that a strong inspections program would have kept him at bay. “There may have come a time when he would have needed to take Saddam out,” he told me. “But he wasn’t really a threat. His Army was weak, and the country hadn’t recovered from sanctions.”

When did Scowcroft write about these matters? Patience, dear reader, patience.

Scowcroft again stated what should have been obvious to everyone before the war. Let's assume that Saddam did indeed have WMD (although we now know he did not and even before the war there was plenty of evidence of that fact). How in the world was he going to able to use them while U.N. inspections teams were all over Iraq and the world was watching his every move? Any effort to use WMD would have brought swift and decisive military reaction. With the inspections going on, he would have had to spend time and energy hiding the WMD rather than using them. Continued inspections--and increased inspections--either would have found the WMD before Saddam could use them or more quickly revealed what has since been conclusively established--that there were no WMD or functioning WMD programs.

It was also obvious that much of the Iraqi military capacity had been destroyed in the first Gulf War and that subsequent sanctions had kept Iraq and its military weak in terms of waging any war with other countries.

Iraq and the war on terror

In discussing the neocon vision of spreading democracy through force (which will be discussed in detail in Part 2), Scowcroft commented that “This (the Iraq war) was said to be part of the war on terror, but Iraq feeds terrorism.”

As I wrote in Initial reactions to Bush's speech (on "Victory in Iraq"),

News flash for you, George: in some ways Iraq is Afghanistan of the past. Many Al Qaeda leaders learned and honed their violent skills in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation. It was a real-life combat training ground. Under the Taliban, Afghanistan was still a training ground, but there was no actual combat. Iraq is now the real-life combat training ground. Terrorists are learning and honing skills in a way that did not exist after the Soviets left Afghanistan and before we invaded Iraq. Now the terrorists do not have to go to the trouble and expense of supporting a regime like the Taliban because we are providing the training ground for free.

Anyone who thinks otherwise needs to take another look (or perhaps a first look) at the facts. Let's go back to mid-January of this year, when the National Intelligence Council, an in-house CIA think tank, issued a report that said the Iraq war was helping, not hurting, terrorists. As the Washington Post reported on January 13,

Iraq has replaced Afghanistan as the training ground for the next generation of "professionalized" terrorists, according to a report released yesterday by the National Intelligence Council, the CIA director's think tank.

Iraq provides terrorists with "a training ground, a recruitment ground, the opportunity for enhancing technical skills," said David B. Low, the national intelligence officer for transnational threats. "There is even, under the best scenario, over time, the likelihood that some of the jihadists who are not killed there will, in a sense, go home, wherever home is, and will therefore disperse to various other countries."

As one might expect, this report caused some concern in Congress, so about a month later, hearings were held. Among those who testified was CIA Director Porter Goss--Bush's hand-picked choice for the job. Goss's prepared statement said that "The Iraq conflict, while not a cause of extremism, has become a cause for extremists." Well, no shit, Sherlock. Goss also made this statement:

These jihadists who survive will leave Iraq experienced in and focused on acts of urban terrorism. They represent a potential pool of contacts to build transnational terrorist cells, groups, and networks in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and other countries.

Again, Goss pointed out the obvious. As reported by the Washington Post on February 17, Vice Adm. Lowell E. Jacoby, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told Congress about another stark reality: "Our policies in the Middle East fuel Islamic resentment. Overwhelming majorities in Morocco, Jordan and Saudi Arabia believe the U.S. has a negative policy toward the Arab world." And what has been the centerpiece of our policies? That would be the Iraq war.

Gee, it turns out that the former Lt. General and National Security Adviser to two Presidents turned out to be right when he talked to Goldberg in 2005.

Which raises some interesting questions. Did Scowcroft ever voice his opinions and concerns prior to the Iraq war, and if so, what did the Bush administration do with his advice?

Scowcroft did express his concerns before the war.

Scowcroft went public with his views on August 15, 2002, when the Wall Street Journal published his editorial "Don't Attack Saddam," which had a secondary title of "It would undermine our antiterror efforts." The editorial is a straightforward expression of what could have and should have been done other than invading Iraq. It also clearly states reasons why war would be a bad idea.

But why did Scowcroft go public with these views rather than state them to the Bush administration in private? He went public because he was completely ignored and dismissed by the Bush administration when he tried to express his views to them in private. As Goldberg described,

Scowcroft’s colleagues told me he would have preferred to deliver his analysis privately to the White House. But Scowcroft, the apotheosis of a Washington insider, was by then definitively on the outside, and there was no one in the White House who would listen to him. On the face of it, this is remarkable: Scowcroft’s best friend’s son is the President; his friend Dick Cheney is the Vice President; Condoleezza Rice, who was the national-security adviser, and is now the Secretary of State, was once a Scowcroft protege; and the current national-security adviser, Stephen Hadley, is another protoge and a former principal at the Scowcroft Group.

According to friends, Scowcroft was consulted more frequently by the Clinton White House than he has been by George W. Bush’s. Clinton’s national-security adviser, Samuel Berger, told me that he valued Scowcroft’s opinions: “He knows a great deal, and I always found it useful to speak to him.”

So why was this man, who had close, personal connections to most of the Bush inner circle, treated like a stray dog? The answer is simple--he dared to disagree.

According to "Breaking Ranks," the one person in the Bush administration who was not upset with Scowcroft was Colin Powell, and we know how he was treated by Bush and the neocons.

And while "the White House–in particular Rice–saw Scowcroft’s op-ed as a betrayal," the relationship between Scowcroft and the White House was by that time already in a shambles.

That relationship, and Scowcroft's doctrine of realism as opposed to the neocon philosophy, will be addressed in Part 2.