Neo Conservatives turn on their own!!

[JMS]

Neo Conservatives turn on their own!!

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2006/12/neocons200612

Neo Culpa

As Iraq slips further into chaos, the war's neoconservative boosters have turned sharply on the Bush administration, charging that their grand designs have been undermined by White House incompetence. In a series of exclusive interviews, Richard Perle, Kenneth Adelman, David Frum, and others play the blame game with shocking frankness. Target No. 1: the president himself.

by David Rose VF.COM November 3, 2006

Richard Perle. Photograph by Nigel Parry.

I remember sitting with Richard Perle in his suite at London's Grosvenor House hotel and receiving a private lecture on the importance of securing victory in Iraq. "Iraq is a very good candidate for democratic reform," he said. "It won't be Westminster overnight, but the great democracies of the world didn't achieve the full, rich structure of democratic governance overnight. The Iraqis have a decent chance of succeeding." Perle seemed to exude the scent of liberation, as well as a whiff of gunpowder. It was February 2003, and Operation Iraqi Freedom, the culmination of his long campaign on behalf of regime change in Iraq, was less than a month away.

Three years later, Perle and I meet again at his home outside Washington, D.C. It is October, the worst month for U.S. casualties in Iraq in almost two years, and Republicans are bracing for losses in the upcoming midterm elections. As he looks into my eyes, speaking slowly and with obvious deliberation, Perle is unrecognizable as the confident hawk who, as chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee, had invited the exiled Iraqi dissident Ahmad Chalabi to its first meeting after 9/11. "The levels of brutality that we've seen are truly horrifying, and I have to say, I underestimated the depravity," Perle says now, adding that total defeat—an American withdrawal that leaves Iraq as an anarchic "failed state"—is not yet inevitable but is becoming more likely. "And then," says Perle, "you'll get all the mayhem that the world is capable of creating."

According to Perle, who left the Defense Policy Board in 2004, this unfolding catastrophe has a central cause: devastating dysfunction within the administration of President George W. Bush. Perle says, "The decisions did not get made that should have been. They didn't get made in a timely fashion, and the differences were argued out endlessly.… At the end of the day, you have to hold the president responsible.… I don't think he realized the extent of the opposition within his own administration, and the disloyalty."

George W. Bush. Photograph by Annie Leibovitz.

Perle goes so far as to say that, if he had his time over, he would not have advocated an invasion of Iraq: "I think if I had been delphic, and had seen where we are today, and people had said, 'Should we go into Iraq?,' I think now I probably would have said, 'No, let's consider other strategies for dealing with the thing that concerns us most, which is Saddam supplying weapons of mass destruction to terrorists.' … I don't say that because I no longer believe that Saddam had the capability to produce weapons of mass destruction, or that he was not in contact with terrorists. I believe those two premises were both correct. Could we have managed that threat by means other than a direct military intervention? Well, maybe we could have."

Having spoken with Perle, I wonder: What do the rest of the pro-war neoconservatives think? If the much caricatured "Prince of Darkness" is now plagued with doubt, how do his comrades-in-arms feel? I am particularly interested in finding out because I interviewed many neocons before the invasion and, like many people, found much to admire in their vision of spreading democracy in the Middle East.

I expect to encounter disappointment. What I find instead is despair, and fury at the incompetence of the Bush administration the neoconservatives once saw as their brightest hope.

To David Frum, the former White House speechwriter who co-wrote Bush's 2002 State of the Union address that accused Iraq of being part of an "axis of evil," it now looks as if defeat may be inescapable, because "the insurgency has proven it can kill anyone who cooperates, and the United States and its friends have failed to prove that it can protect them." This situation, he says, must ultimately be blamed on "failure at the center"—starting with President Bush.

Kenneth Adelman, a lifelong neocon activist and Pentagon insider who served on the Defense Policy Board until 2005, wrote a famous op-ed article in The Washington Post in February 2002, arguing: "I believe demolishing Hussein's military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk." Now he says, "I just presumed that what I considered to be the most competent national-security team since Truman was indeed going to be competent. They turned out to be among the most incompetent teams in the post-war era. Not only did each of them, individually, have enormous flaws, but together they were deadly, dysfunctional."

Dick Cheney. Photograph by Annie Leibovitz.

Fearing that worse is still to come, Adelman believes that neoconservatism itself—what he defines as "the idea of a tough foreign policy on behalf of morality, the idea of using our power for moral good in the world"—is dead, at least for a generation. After Iraq, he says, "it's not going to sell." And if he, too, had his time over, Adelman says, "I would write an article that would be skeptical over whether there would be a performance that would be good enough to implement our policy. The policy can be absolutely right, and noble, beneficial, but if you can't execute it, it's useless, just useless. I guess that's what I would have said: that Bush's arguments are absolutely right, but you know what, you just have to put them in the drawer marked can't do. And that's very different from let's go."

I spend the better part of two weeks in conversations with some of the most respected voices among the neoconservative elite. What I discover is that none of them is optimistic. All of them have regrets, not only about what has happened but also, in many cases, about the roles they played. Their dismay extends beyond the tactical issues of whether America did right or wrong, to the underlying question of whether exporting democracy is something America knows how to do.

I will present my findings in full in the January issue of Vanity Fair, which will reach newsstands in New York and L.A. on December 6 and nationally by December 12. In the meantime, here is a brief survey of some of what I heard from the war's remorseful proponents.

Richard Perle: "In the administration that I served [Perle was an assistant secretary of defense under Ronald Reagan], there was a one-sentence description of the decision-making process when consensus could not be reached among disputatious departments: 'The president makes the decision.' [bush] did not make decisions, in part because the machinery of government that he nominally ran was actually running him. The National Security Council was not serving [bush] properly. He regarded [then National-Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice] as part of the family."

Donald Rumsfeld. Photograph by Annie Leibovitz.

Michael Ledeen, American Enterprise Institute freedom scholar: "Ask yourself who the most powerful people in the White House are. They are women who are in love with the president: Laura [bush], Condi, Harriet Miers, and Karen Hughes."

Frank Gaffney, an assistant secretary of defense under Ronald Reagan and founder of the Center for Security Policy: "[bush] doesn't in fact seem to be a man of principle who's steadfastly pursuing what he thinks is the right course. He talks about it, but the policy doesn't track with the rhetoric, and that's what creates the incoherence that causes us problems around the world and at home. It also creates the sense that you can take him on with impunity."

Kenneth Adelman: "The most dispiriting and awful moment of the whole administration was the day that Bush gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to [former C.I.A. director] George Tenet, General Tommy Franks, and [Coalition Provisional Authority chief] Jerry [Paul] Bremer—three of the most incompetent people who've ever served in such key spots. And they get the highest civilian honor a president can bestow on anyone! That was the day I checked out of this administration. It was then I thought, There's no seriousness here, these are not serious people. If he had been serious, the president would have realized that those three are each directly responsible for the disaster of Iraq."

David Frum: "I always believed as a speechwriter that if you could persuade the president to commit himself to certain words, he would feel himself committed to the ideas that underlay those words. And the big shock to me has been that although the president said the words, he just did not absorb the ideas. And that is the root of, maybe, everything."

Condoleezza Rice. Photograph by Annie Leibovitz.

Michael Rubin, former Pentagon Office of Special Plans and Coalition Provisional Authority staffer: "Where I most blame George Bush is that through his rhetoric people trusted him, people believed him. Reformists came out of the woodwork and exposed themselves." By failing to match his rhetoric with action, Rubin adds, Bush has betrayed Iraqi reformers in a way that is "not much different from what his father did on February 15, 1991, when he called the Iraqi people to rise up, and then had second thoughts and didn't do anything once they did."

Richard Perle: "Huge mistakes were made, and I want to be very clear on this: They were not made by neoconservatives, who had almost no voice in what happened, and certainly almost no voice in what happened after the downfall of the regime in Baghdad. I'm getting damn tired of being described as an architect of the war. I was in favor of bringing down Saddam. Nobody said, 'Go design the campaign to do that.' I had no responsibility for that."

Kenneth Adelman: "The problem here is not a selling job. The problem is a performance job.… Rumsfeld has said that the war could never be lost in Iraq, it could only be lost in Washington. I don't think that's true at all. We're losing in Iraq.… I've worked with [Rumsfeld] three times in my life. I've been to each of his houses, in Chicago, Taos, Santa Fe, Santo Domingo, and Las Vegas. I'm very, very fond of him, but I'm crushed by his performance. Did he change, or were we wrong in the past? Or is it that he was never really challenged before? I don't know. He certainly fooled me."

Eliot Cohen, director of the strategic-studies program at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and member of the Defense Policy Board: "I wouldn't be surprised if what we end up drifting toward is some sort of withdrawal on some sort of timetable and leaving the place in a pretty ghastly mess.… I do think it's going to end up encouraging various strands of Islamism, both Shia and Sunni, and probably will bring de-stabilization of some regimes of a more traditional kind, which already have their problems.… The best news is that the United States remains a healthy, vibrant, vigorous society. So in a real pinch, we can still pull ourselves together. Unfortunately, it will probably take another big hit. And a very different quality of leadership. Maybe we'll get it."

David Rose is a Vanity Fair contributing editor.

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[AsburySkinsFan]

:munchout: ............

[Guest Rafterman]

What a great week this is turning out to be.

[mjah]

Hmm. A shark feeding frenzy where the only thing to eat is shark.

How strange that everybody thought somebody else was lining up the easy prey. Even though nobody forgot to bring a set of razor-sharp teeth.

Why, it's almost enough to make one conclude that there was never a plan for the evening's activities!

Which is funny, because I remember hearing plenty of grinning, cartilage-spined monsters speaking of grandiose plans not too long ago.

What was that name again? "The Liberator's Ball," was it?

A curious lot, these neocons. Too bad their myopic revolutionary "vision" cost our country about a trillion dollars and the loss of its reputation for at least a decade or so.

But hey, who's counting?

Can't really blame the neocons. They tilted at that windmill while the tilting was good. Yeah, they tilted the everloving $&%* outta that thing, huh?

After all, who needs to mill some stupid grain, when the obviously important task is pounding sand?

I mean, if you could get essentially limitless access to a President who's willing to do whatever you want -- even though all the responsibility falls upon him -- well, who wouldn't push their agenda as far as it would go?

Just two more years.

And then twenty to convince the world we aren't as stupid as we look.

[Teller]

Location: Boston, MA

'Nuff said.

[Thiebear]

So Perle said he didn't see how bad this was going to get from 2003 to now.

AND he says he still doesnt see a total defeat or immediate withdrawal but its a possibility now...

So basically he sees what everyone else can see.

With the writer throwing in ALL KINDS of neocon this and shocking that after and before each statement.

[mjah]

Location: Boston, MA

'Nuff said.

Typical.

I moved here six years ago from DC. I'm actually fairly conservative in many of my beliefs, including my support for a strong, active, well supported military. And I'm of the opinion that Kennedy and Kerry comprise just about the worst one-two Senate punch in the country. I'd be a big fan of getting those two insipid Muppets out of office.

One thing I don't support, however, is a Federal Executive doctrine of utter stupidity, unabashed opportunism, and Machiavellian blindness. Bush is an embarrassment, plain and simple. And not Jimmy Carter style, where the US looked weak and national morale was low -- but rather Bush's very own style, where a hundred thousand people die and a trillion dollars are committed to a laughable new Crusade under an unfathomably usurped and twisted notion of "Freedom"... and, once again, national morale is low. Seems like a pretty roundabout way to get there. I mean, Carter basically screwed up our national pride for free. Much more efficient.

Then again, Carter had a head start on messing up our patriotism, coming into office on the heels of the Vietnam quagmire and all. But that's just some dusty old history -- and as Bush has so capably reminded us, history really isn't worth studying.

Those who still implausibly defend Bush's Iraq War might stop for a second to wonder why even the biggest rats on that flaming ship the USS Neocon are putting on their Water Wings and hanging out by the lifeboats.

It's all over.

We were never stay the course ("staythecourse-staythecourse-staythecourse-staythecourse"), and only those evil Democrats cut and run. So what's the plan, guys?

[Mass_SkinsFan]

I moved here six years ago from DC. I'm actually fairly conservative in many of my beliefs, including my support for a strong, active, well supported military. And I'm of the opinion that Kennedy and Kerry comprise just about the worst one-two Senate punch in the country. I'd be a big fan of getting those two insipid Muppets out of office.

Did you not look into the socio-political environment before you moved up here? Hell, I'd move down to the SouthEast of the US in a moment if I could. As for Kennedy/Kerry... get used to them. They're in those offices for life and there's absolutely nothing either you or I are every going to be able to legally do to stop that.

One thing I don't support, however, is a Federal Executive doctrine of utter stupidity, unabashed opportunism, and Machiavellian blindness. Bush is an embarrassment, plain and simple. And not Jimmy Carter style, where the US looked weak and national morale was low -- but rather Bush's very own style, where a hundred thousand people die and a trillion dollars are committed to a laughable new Crusade under an unfathomably usurped and twisted notion of "Freedom"... and, once again, national morale is low. Seems like a pretty roundabout way to get there. I mean, Carter basically screwed up our national pride for free. Much more efficient.

I will agree that an Executive doctrine of stupidity is not useful. Unfortunately it's largely come about by the Republicans (note I didn't say Conservatives) introductions of a mental midget and that mental midget's interest in listening to other people rather than doing what should have been done, despite the arguements against it.

I will admit I got sucked in by it too, but the moment the Liberals/Democrats signed on to the idea of a ground war in Iraq we should have known it was a bad idea and just NUKED the entire Arabian Peninsula.

Those who still implausibly defend Bush's Iraq War might stop for a second to wonder why even the biggest rats on that flaming ship the USS Neocon are putting on their Water Wings and hanging out by the lifeboats.

I still believe that Iraq needed to be dealt with. I believe they had already sealed their fate by planning an attempt on the life of a former US President. I just no longer believe that a ground assault was the best idea.

As for the rats... they're exactly that. They're all about elections, not values or morals. That's why they're jumping ship.

We were never stay the course ("staythecourse-staythecourse-staythecourse-staythecourse"), and only those evil Democrats cut and run. So what's the plan, guys?

What's the plan... exactly what we should have done in the fall/winter of 2001. NUKE THE ENTIRE AREA. That is the area including the entire Arabian Peninsula, Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Of course we'd pull all our troops out of the area first.

[Thiebear]

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MzgxYzUzYmRlNjhmNzMyNjI2MDM4YmRjNTFhODA4MGQ=

Heres the article where the people in are shocked at how Vanity fair took their words and turned them around. Saying Rose was known to be truthful and fair but Vanity fair is not...

Its long and just about all of them take exception to the misquotes and added lines.

All with the intent of making it seem like "WHY NOW?"

[EersSkins05]

What's the plan... exactly what we should have done in the fall/winter of 2001. NUKE THE ENTIRE AREA. That is the area including the entire Arabian Peninsula, Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Of course we'd pull all our troops out of the area first.

Mass Skinsfan- having no problem with the murder of millions of innocent civilians since 1974! lol

[Mass_SkinsFan]

Mass Skinsfan- having no problem with the murder of millions of innocent civilians since 1974! lol

Show me an "innocent civilian" in a foreign country and maybe I'll shed a tear. Unfortunately you can't do that, because they don't exist. There are only three types of people in a foreign country...

Current Enemies: Those people capable of bearing arms against the US at this time.

Former Enemies: Those people no longer capable of bearing arms against the US at this time, but who were in the past.

Future Enemies: Those people potentially capable of bearing arms against the US in the future.

[AsburySkinsFan]

Show me an "innocent civilian" in a foreign country and maybe I'll shed a tear. Unfortunately you can't do that, because they don't exist. There are only three types of people in a foreign country...

Current Enemies: Those people capable of bearing arms against the US at this time.

Former Enemies: Those people no longer capable of bearing arms against the US at this time, but who were in the past.

Future Enemies: Those people potentially capable of bearing arms against the US in the future.

Oh MY! This has to be the most blinded and unthoughtful and blatantly bigoted thing I've read here at ES.com. Incredible, I honestly can't believe you posted this. I've read it three times now and I just keep hoping that I'm gonna find the punch-line. This attitude is insane.

[Mass_SkinsFan]

Oh MY! This has to be the most blinded and unthoughtful and blatantly bigoted thing I've read here at ES.com. Incredible, I honestly can't believe you posted this. I've read it three times now and I just keep hoping that I'm gonna find the punch-line. This attitude is insane.

There is no punchline. That's the way I feel. Pure and Simple. I really thought I'd made that pretty blatantly obvious over time, but I guess not.

As for being bigoted... definitely. I won't even start to deny that I put Americans on a higher rung of the ladder than the citizens of other countries.

[AsburySkinsFan]

There is no punchline. That's the way I feel. Pure and Simple. I really thought I'd made that pretty blatantly obvious over time, but I guess not.

As for being bigoted... definitely. I won't even start to deny that I put Americans on a higher rung of the ladder than the citizens of other countries.

Let me get this straight, so someone is "better" because they were born in a particular country? Frankly, if you don't see how crazy this is then, wow....

Let me ask this since you seem to have a pretty good idea of who is better than whom: Which Americans are better? I mean do you have this figured out by state, political affiliation, socio-economic class, educational level or what?

How do you determine who is better? Is it simply because they are born here? What criteria do you use to make your judgments?

[Mass_SkinsFan]

Let me ask this since you seem to have a pretty good idea of who is better than whom: Which Americans are better? I mean do you have this figured out by state, political affiliation, socio-economic class, educational level or what?

How do you determine who is better? Is it simply because they are born here? What criteria do you use to make your judgments?

I've discussed this all in the past, Asbury. I'm pretty sure you're more than capable of finding it in my former posts, many of which I'm sure you've actually already read. I'm not going to waste everyone's time going over it all again.

[chomerics]

Future Enemies: Those people potentially capable of bearing arms against the US in the future.

So Mass, when you stated on this very board that you would willingly fight against our country if the democrats gained power, are you in essence calling yourself a "future enemy" of our country?

[Mass_SkinsFan]

So Mass, when you stated on this very board that you would willingly fight against our country if the democrats gained power, are you in essence calling yourself a "future enemy" of our country?

That would be one way of looking at it, chom. Just as my belief that the entire Liberal/Democrat population of this country falls into the "Current Enemy" category.

[EersSkins05]

Please move on. Nothing to see here.

[AsburySkinsFan]

That would be one way of looking at it, chom. Just as my belief that the entire Liberal/Democrat population of this country falls into the "Current Enemy" category.

Yowza!

I guess my question then becomes: "Who's next?"

[Mass_SkinsFan]

Yowza!

I guess my question then becomes: "Who's next?"

Actually once we're rid of the Liberals (anyone who's political viewpoint is to the Left of mine), and the foreigners, I think we'd be in pretty good shape, actually.

[Spaceman Spiff]

Who gives a :pooh:

[AsburySkinsFan]

Actually once we're rid of the Liberals (anyone who's political viewpoint is to the Left of mine), and the foreigners, I think we'd be in pretty good shape, actually.

Foreigners? So, was your family in "America" before 1492?

As far as thos to the Left of you, I'm thinking that means pretty much everyone.

Maybe you'd be better off buying a nice little island in the middle of the ocean so you could enjoy your paradise all by yourself. Oh, but then you'd be the foreigner. :doh:

[Mass_SkinsFan]

Foreigners? So, was your family in "America" before 1492?

There are large parts of my family that have been on this continent since very shortly after the Pilgrims landed. There aren't a whole lot of white men in this country who can trace their roots further back on this continent than me. Especially since some of my ancestors MAY have been on this continent nearly 500 years before Mr. Columbus ran into the land mass.

As far as thos to the Left of you, I'm thinking that means pretty much everyone.

It would mean a whole lot of people, that's for sure. Though I think you might see an epiphany occur about the time the policy started being implimented.

Maybe you'd be better off buying a nice little island in the middle of the ocean so you could enjoy your paradise all by yourself. Oh, but then you'd be the foreigner. :doh:

Actually, if I thought there was a reasonably realistic way to gather a small bunch of people and do something like that, I'd probably do it. Of course it would be tough being totally isolationist in that sort of situation so it probably wouldn't work real well.

[Hooper]

Nice. These guys got Dubya into this mess and now they're trying to save their legacies by blaming him for all the bad that's come out of what they recommended.

[AsburySkinsFan]

There are large parts of my family that have been on this continent since very shortly after the Pilgrims landed. There aren't a whole lot of white men in this country who can trace their roots further back on this continent than me. Especially since some of my ancestors MAY have been on this continent nearly 500 years before Mr. Columbus ran into the land mass.

So, I guess then that your ancestors were foreigners to this land.....hmmmm

Actually, if I thought there was a reasonably realistic way to gather a small bunch of people and do something like that, I'd probably do it. Of course it would be tough being totally isolationist in that sort of situation so it probably wouldn't work real well.

So you think that living in physical isolation probably doesn't work very well, yet you think that living in national isolation works any better? Hmm, imagine the same problems on your island only magnified to the Nth degree.