The Center for American Progress


IRAQ
Don't Ask, Don't Tell

The horrifying pictures and reports of abuse of Iraqi prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq dominated the news this weekend. (There are new and equally sickening details in Seymour Hersh's latest New Yorker piece and in the full report by the Red Cross.) The picture that emerges is one of a Pentagon shielded behind walls of wishful thinking, a blurred chain of command and a situation made consummately worse by a lack of preparation and planning for the war in Iraq. As Newsweek reports, Rumsfeld's strengths turned out to be weaknesses and his "culture of intimidation" in fact "helped pave the road to Abu Ghraib." (Read American Progress's recent report outlining an alternative strategy in Iraq.)

HIDING BAD NEWS: The Defense Department's handles bad news much like an ostrich, head firmly in the sand. In the New Yorker, Hersh explains: "Secrecy and wishful thinking...are defining characteristics of Rumsfeld's Pentagon, and shaped its response to the reports from Abu Ghraib." According to one Pentagon official, "They always want to delay the release of bad news—in the hope that something good will break."

RELYING ON THE BEST CASE SCENARIOS: Top military officials are beginning to break with the cult of silence in the Pentagon and speak out about why thing have gone so wrong in Iraq. Asked who was to blame, one senior general quoted in the WP "pointed directly at Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz. 'I do not believe we had a clearly defined war strategy, end state and exit strategy before we commenced our invasion,' he said. 'Had someone like Colin Powell been the chairman [of the Joint Chiefs of Staff], he would not have agreed to send troops without a clear exit strategy. The current OSD [Office of the Secretary of Defense] refused to listen or adhere to military advice.'" The Pentagon's strategy was to just count on things working out for the best: Troops would be greeted by grateful Iraqis, there would be enough oil to pay for reconstruction, there would be a strong international presence in the country. The problem: Planners in the Pentagon, when presented with best-case, moderate-case, and worst-case scenarios, based plans on best-case every time. When the reality didn't match up to rosy predictions, the United States was left without a strategy for success.

SLOW TO INVESTIGATE: According to the NYT, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez told the Pentagon on March 12 that intelligence officers and contractors may have been to blame for abuse in the prisons. "For reasons that remain unclear, that inquiry did not begin until" 42 days later, on April 23.

PENTAGON APPROVED: The Pentagon approved tougher interrogations. According to the WP, "in April 2003, the Defense Department approved interrogation techniques for use at the Guantanamo Bay prison that permit reversing the normal sleep patterns of detainees and exposing them to heat, cold and "sensory assault," including loud music and bright lights, according to defense officials." The list was approved at the highest levels of the Pentagon, and the use of the techniques required the approval of senior Pentagon officials. As yet, it is still unclear if the same rules were in effect in Abu Ghraib. The warden of the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Geoffrey Miller, came to Abu Ghraib to "Gitmoize" it, turning it into a hub of interrogation.

THE CHENEY SOLUTION: Instead of supporting a full investigation into the prison affair, Vice President Cheney chided lawmakers looking into the fiasco, telling them to "Get off [Rumsfeld's] case." The statement seemed to claim that the real problem was a supposed victimization of Rumsfeld, instead of the massive international scandal. Cheney's statement, not surprisingly, rankled several senators of both parties who have "criticized the Pentagon for tardiness in disclosing the allegations."

DON'T READ THIS REPORT: The instinct to hush things up was still in effect after the story and gruesome pictures broke. According to Time magazine, the administration sent an email to Pentagon staff with the subject line "URGENT IT (Information Technology) BULLETIN: Taguba Report." The email orders "employees not to read or download the Taguba report...on the grounds that the document is classified. It also orders them not to discuss the matter with friends or family members."

IRAQ
$300 Billion And Counting

Less than three months after the White House said $50 billion was the maximum it would need in new money for operations in Iraq, the San Francisco Chronicle reports "the war in Iraq could top $150 billion through the next fiscal year," putting the Iraq invasion on track to be "one of the costliest military campaigns in modern times." The revelation is just the latest chapter in the administration's effort to mislead Americans about the cost of an Iraq invasion.

A HISTORY OF MISLEADING THE PUBLIC: Before the war, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz promised that Iraq "can really finance its own reconstruction," USAID Director Andrew Natsios promised Iraq operations would cost just $1.7 billion total, and the White House budget office said "Iraq will not require sustained aid." Those estimates proved far from accurate. Then last year, the White House fired top economic adviser Larry Lindsey after he acknowledged the cost of Iraq would be between $100 and $200 billion (experts now estimate it will cost over $300 billion). Budget Director Josh Bolten said on 7/29/03 that "we don't anticipate requesting anything additional for [Iraq for] the balance of this year." Six weeks later, the president asked for another $87 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan, bringing the total to $166 billion. And this year, in an effort to obscure the worsening deficit picture, the White House omitted all costs of ongoing operations in Iraq from its budget, even as military planners said more money would be needed. Now, the White House has requested another $25 billion.

EVEN POWELL IS BEING MISLED: The White House is not only misleading the American public about the cost of war – it is even misleading top national security officials in its own administration. According to USA Today, Secretary of State Colin Powell was not told of the new $25 billion request for Iraq, leaving Powell in the embarassing position of "telling members of the Congressional Black Caucus that no new funding request would be forthcoming" just days before the request became public.

ADMINISTRATION APATHETIC ABOUT COST OVERRUNS: Despite costs skyrocketing, top administration officials all but admitted their indifference to massive overcharging by companies like Halliburton, the oil services firm formerly run by Vice President Dick Cheney. For instance, with the Coalition Provisional Authority's inspector general raising new questions about bills racked up by Halliburton executives at a lavish five-star beachfront hotel in Kuwait, Wolfowitz told Senators he simply "can't give a number" detailing the burn rate of U.S. taxpayer money in Iraq.

OUTRAGE OVER BEING MISLED: USA Today's editorial board writes, "By refusing to level with Congress and the public about the true costs of the war, the administration delays a needed national debate on the difficult choices the government must make to pay for the Iraq operation at a time when it is saddled with a record $500 billion deficit." For instance, "as a measure of the Bush administration's priorities in the war on terrorism, it has spent about $3 in Iraq for every $1 committed to homeland security." Boston Globe columnist Derrick Jackson notes, "the Bush administration has not made a single financial claim about the war that has come true." And while Wolfowitz last week said those who question the administration's conduct have no scruples about the truth," it is "the administration with no scruples about the cost of war and little regard for the truth."

THE COST OF UNILATERALISM: Much has been written about the political and military costs of the administration's unilateralism in Iraq. But there is also one other cost: financial. As the San Francisco Chronicle notes, while the 1991 Gulf War cost $84 billion, the coalition building by the first Bush administration convinced other countries to pick up "about 90% of the cost." By contrast, U.S. taxpayers are footing almost the entire bill in Iraq today. To put the contrast in dollar figures, if the current administration had secured the same international funding and support for today's Iraq invasion as the first Bush administration did, Americans would be paying roughly $18 billion for Iraq, instead of almost $200 billion, and counting.

NUCLEAR SECURITY
The Sleeping Tiger

The untold story of the Bush administration's domestic and international security policy is its failure to act decisively to reduce the threat posed by nuclear weapons and materials. A 1998 plan to destroy "68 tons of plutonium stripped from bombs and warheads" from the United States and Russia has stalled during the Bush administration. Sixty-eight tons of plutonium is enough to construct 10,000 nuclear weapons. According to the General Accounting Office "basic security improvements have not been made at dozens of military installations where more than 60 percent of the country's plutonium and weapons-grade uranium is kept." The GAO found "U.S. government facilities are also vulnerable." Terrorist organizations or rogue states which acquired the material "would have little trouble assembling a crude weapon." Despite reaching an agreement six years ago, "the plutonium remains intact, and no construction has begun on either of the planned processing factories." The failure to move the project forward "highlights a failure by the White House to back up its nonproliferation ambitions with action." The administration has slashed funding to the widely praised Nunn-Lugar program – a critical effort that secures loose nuclear material worldwide – by $42 million in his most recent budget. According to former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn "the big problem is there is a leadership gap. These are not big obstacles. They can be handled by leaders who are determined and focused."

NO CARROT, NO STICK FOR NORTH KOREA: Charles Pritchard, formerly Colin Powell's top official dealing with North Korea, has warned for months that "the White House lacks an effective strategy to dissuade North Korea from building up its nuclear arms." Under Bush's watch, "North Korea's nuclear arsenal, which was once thought to number one or two weapons, appears to be growing substantially." According to Pritchard, the situation has deteriorated because "the administration has neither offered much of a carrot nor wielded a stick." The administration has refused to engage North Korea in direct negotiations or "put the North Koreans on notice that further developments will trigger economic sanctions or perhaps even military actions." As a result, North Korea now has as many as six additional nuclear weapons.

PUBLIC KEPT IN THE DARK: The Bush administration has shut the public out of critical decisions involving nuclear security that directly affect public safety. For example, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has refused to release "an unclassified request by a nuclear power plant operator for an exemption" to new security requirement that mandate plants to be prepared for an attack by up to 19 terrorists in four squads. Meanwhile, officials with the Nuclear Energy Institute, a group that represents the industry, have personal meetings with NRC staff almost daily. The closed door policy has complicated "efforts to hold officials accountable for their decisions, especially in the counterterrorism field."

ADMINISTRATION FINALLY TAKES WATCHDOG'S ADVICE: In a promising development, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham took an important first step to improving the security of U.S. nuclear labs by announcing "a series of defensive measures" proposed by the Project on Government Oversight, a government watchdog group. Abraham announced he would consider "federalizing the security forces that protect bomb-grade materials" in order to "increase professionalism and create consistent standards at different sites." He also proposed eliminating the use of PCs with disk drives in nuclear labs to "keep an insider form walking off with a CD full of top-secret information." But the true test will be whether the administration follows through – POGO has "heard promises before, only to be disappointed when the promises fall flat."







SECRECY – STUDY FINDS GOV'T WEB SECRECY UNNECESSARY: A study by the RAND Institute found "the overwhelming majority of federal Web sites that reveal information about airports, power plants, military bases and other attractive terrorist targets need not be censored because similar or better information is easily available elsewhere." RAND "urged government officials to consider reopening public access to about three dozen Web pages that were withdrawn from the Internet in the name of homeland security." The study found that there were "no federal Web sites that contained target information essential to a terrorist." Shortly after 9/11 "federal agencies scrambled to pull...data off the Internet. The Transportation Department removed pipeline maps. The Environmental Protection Agency deleted descriptions of risk management plans for chemicals stored at 15,000 sites. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission brought down its Web site."

SCIENCE – REAGAN STUMPS FOR STEM-CELL RESEARCH: The world of science gained an important ally this week, as "former First Lady Nancy Reagan endorsed human embryonic research over the weekend at a star-studded fundraiser." "Saturday's event marked the first time that she had spoken publicly in favor of the research, for which" President Bush "limited federal funding in 2001, following a politically charged debate." (It could also provide breakthroughs in cancer, diabetes, spinal injuries and Parkinson's.) President Bush, bowing to pressure from right-wing conservatives, has stymied stem-cell research, sharply curtailing available lines and placing politics over science by firing members of his handpicked Council on Bioethics who had been pro-stem-cell research. The curtailment of new lines hinders research on future disease treatments.

HOUSING – STEAL FROM THE POOR TO PAY THE RICH: According to the NYT edit page, "The Bush administration's tax cuts for the well-to-do have taken a heavy toll on the nation's most important social programs for the poor and working class. Prominent casualties include child care assistance for working mothers and federal aid for needy college students. The latest victim appears to be Section 8, the government's main housing program for the poor. The program provides rent subsidies for two million of the country's most vulnerable families and encourages private developers to build affordable housing." However, "having paid lip service to the goal of ending chronic homelessness, the Bush administration is now threatening to kill off the only program that could possibly achieve it."

SCIENCE – PLAN B: USA Today reports scientists are "hopping mad" that the Food and Drug Administration disregarded scientific recommendations in order to embrace politics and banned allowing emergency contraception to be available without a prescription. Today, "some members of two FDA advisory committees say they've thought about resigning over what they view as a political decision." Said one panel member, Vanderbilt drug expert Alastair Wood: "What's disturbing is that the science was overwhelming here, and the FDA is supposed to make decisions on science."



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