"The statements the White House has always made about this is that people should be prepared for the fact that it would go longer," Fleischer said. "That's exactly how the White House explained what we expect.

"When the White House says to you that it can be long, lengthy and dangerous, we're anticipating that any number of scenarios can develop."

*sound of buzzer*

Here's what the Administration and its supporters (OK, it wasn't precisely the White House) said during the run-up to war (compiled by Salon):

Vice President Dick Cheney, on NBC's "Meet the Press" March 16:

"The read we get on the people of Iraq is there is no question but that they want to get rid of Saddam Hussein and they will welcome as liberators the United States when we come to do that."

"My guess is even significant elements of the Republican Guard are likely as well to want to avoid conflict with the U.S. forces and are likely to step aside."

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, in an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN March 23:

"The course of this war is clear. The outcome is clear. The regime of Saddam Hussein is gone. It's over. It will not be there in a relatively reasonably predictable period of time."

"And the people in Iraq need to know that: that it will not be long before they will be liberated."

Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, in a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars March 11:

"Over and over, we hear reports of Iraqis here in the United States who manage to communicate with their friends and families in Iraq, and what they are hearing is amazing. Their friends and relatives want to know what is taking the Americans so long. When are you coming?"

"In a meeting last week at the White House, one of these Iraqi-Americans said, 'A war with Saddam Hussein would be a war for Iraq, not against Iraq.'"

"The Iraqi people understand what this crisis is about. Like the people of France in the 1940s, they view us as their hoped-for liberator. They know that America will not come as a conqueror. Our plan -- as President Bush has said -- is to 'remain as long as necessary and not a day more.'"

Richard Perle, recently resigned chairman of the Defense Policy Board, in a PBS interview July 11, 2002:

"Saddam is much weaker than we think he is. He's weaker militarily. We know he's got about a third of what he had in 1991."

"But it's a house of cards. He rules by fear because he knows there is no underlying support. Support for Saddam, including within his military organization, will collapse at the first whiff of gunpowder. "

Ken ("Cakewalk") Adelman, former U.N. ambassador, in an Op-Ed for the Washington Post, Feb. 13, 2002:

"I believe demolishing Hussein's military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk. Let me give simple, responsible reasons: (1) It was a cakewalk last time; (2) they've become much weaker; (3) we've become much stronger; and (4) now we're playing for keeps.

Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a breakfast meeting March 4, 2003:

"What you'd like to do is have it be a short, short conflict. The best way to do that is have such a shock on the system, the Iraqi regime would have to assume early on the end is inevitable."

Christopher Hitchens, Vanity Fair writer, in a debate Jan. 28, 2003:

"This will be no war -- there will be a fairly brief and ruthless military intervention.

"The president will give an order. [The attack] will be rapid, accurate and dazzling ... It will be greeted by the majority of the Iraqi people as an emancipation. And I say, bring it on."

- tom moody 3-29-2003 9:38 am

If you say a little bit of everything, all contingencies are covered ...

MR. FLEISCHER: I could not dispute that more strongly, 
and let me cite it for you. If you take a look at what the
President said on October 7th in Cincinnati in a major
speech to the country, the President said, "Military conflict
could be difficult. An Iraqi regime faced with its own demise
may attempt cruel and desperate measures. There is
no easy or risk-free course of action." That's what the
President said some six months ago, five months ago.

And certainly in many of the statements that I've made 
from this podium, I said, even prior to any action beginning, 
I said on March 18th, "I think people have to prepare for 
the fact that it may not be short." On March 21st, even 
before the air campaign began over Baghdad, in my morning
briefing I was asked about talks for unconditional surrender,
how were the talks for the unconditional surrender. I said, I
think it's important for the American people to remember 
that this still can be a long, lengthy, and dangerous
engagement. This is, as the President said, the opening
phase. It can be a long, lengthy, dangerous engagement
because this is war.

MR. FLEISCHER: I understand. But since we don't deal with
               perceptions, I thought it was important --

Q:             You don't?  (Laughter.)

MR. FLEISCHER: No. I do my best, Bill, to bring it back to
               reality.

The right followup from the press (if we had one) would be: "So what you're saying is, with respect to the length of the military action, that the President, the Vice President, and the Defense Secretary were not on the same page?"
- tom moody 3-29-2003 10:50 am [add a comment]

I'd like to "embed" some hard nosed Brits in the White House press core. But you can't accuse Ari of not being prepared.

Q              Ari, in light of what you just said about the
               President being careful not to put a timetable 
               on it, how does he feel about the Vice President
               saying that it will take weeks, not months? 

MR. FLEISCHER: And then what did the Vice President say
               in the next sentence right after he said that? 

Q              I don't have that with me. 

MR. FLEISCHER: He said, I think it will go relatively quickly,
               but we can't count on that. He said, weeks rather
               than -- he was asked, weeks, months. He said,
               weeks rather than months. And then his next
               sentence was, "There is always the possibility of
               complications that you can't anticipate." And,
               obviously, one week into the battle, I don't know
               that anybody can draw any conclusions about
               duration to judge whether the Vice President is
               precise or not, it's accurate or not. 

And then the follow up should be "Fine, what about Secretary Rumsfeld, Assistant Secretary Wolfowitz, General Myers? Were they not on the same page with the President?"

Ari's only as prepared as it takes to blindside a reporter. That's his MO, and they should all go in ready with their facts.
- tom moody 3-29-2003 11:19 am [add a comment]

Q It seems like you're unwilling, as a matter of policy, to acknowledge that the President and the political leadership of this government might have miscalculated -- not in any fatal or even dangerous way, but might have miscalculated the response of the Iraqi army.

The reporter who asked this question below was trying his little heart out, but the question below is not well-formed. What's this "might have" stuff? Figure out what you want to ask, and ask it already!

Perhaps these guys should huddle ahead of time. "Okay, you establish premise 1, you take care of premise 2, bob will take care of premise 3, fred will do follow-up on any dodges, and Nigel will take it to the hoop. Break!"

After exposing the contradictions, with tom's questions, the question just above could have been. "These inconsistent statements indicate a fundamental failure of the president's senior staff to reach a common understanding regarding the likely response of the Iraqi army. Was this failure a communication failure or a planning failure?"

But I'm glad to see they took the time to delve into the freedom toast on the Air Force One menu.
- mark 3-29-2003 12:09 pm [add a comment]

Mine were just smart-ass, Ari-esque questions, intended to trip up the questioner. The way you phrased it emphasizes the notion that there was miscommunication, which wasn't the case.

The Administration and its camp followers spoke with one voice before the war, saying that it would be quick and easy. Now Ari's doing his thing, seizing on the scraps of qualifying language in the original statements and saying they were the main message. His question about Cheney does two things: embarrasses the reporter and breaks his train of thought, and also creates the impression that the parts of the Cheney transcript the reporter "omitted" are much more significant than they are.

There were several articles in Salon/Slate type-journals praising Ari for such tactics, but they're really just intellectual thuggery, to use a favorite Administration word. The press is apparently sick of it, which is why you see them bursting out laughing more at his shenanigans.

With 20/20 hindsight, the best response by the reporter would have been to trust his instincts and his sense of the Cheney quotes and bluff. When Ari says, "And then what did the Vice President say in the next sentence right after he said that?" the reporter should have said "Nothing but empty qualifying language, but I'm sure you can quote it to me." That way, he's setting up the information to be meaningless the way Ari sets it up to be significant. I know most people aren't that fast on their feet, but by now the regular press corps should be wise to Fleischer's tricks.

- tom moody 3-29-2003 8:58 pm [add a comment]

my take on all of this stuff is that we underestimated two things: our loss of credibility given our aboutface in 1991, and the impact of the worldwide protests/resistance to the US as they filtered to Iraqi field leaders.

perhaps commanders in, say, the south would have stayed firm no matter what, simply based on the first.

but i can't help thinking that the second helped rein in a lot of potential turncoats.

basically we were hoping/expecting that AT SOME POINT Iraqis in leadership positions (eg the lieutenant colonels who lead significant troops) would calculate that their risks were higher if they stayed on Saddam's side than if they switched over to the US.

if they had had access to the same kind of information that the Bushites did (eg our war plan, Bush's unwavering commitment/slash/disdain for European opinion) this would have been reasonable.

but this turned out not to be the case -- for 2 weeks.

note that the pentagon said that a "high level source" tipped them to the latest potential Saddam location -- the one they flattened yesterday.

you gotta believe the combination of cash, immunity from warcrime prosecution, and a potential role in the postwar Iraqi military is looking better and better to a whole bunch of commanders now.

if you added the line "It may take a few weeks, but..." to all of these statements I think they'd ring pretty true at this point.

I also think this "length of the war" brouhaha was pretty stupid to begin with. Vietnam lasted 10 years.

Isn't this war is beginning to look like the fastest conquest of a large territory in history, or something like that?


- big jimmy 4-09-2003 5:02 am [add a comment]

What was the purpose of this lightning-fast war exactly? I have trouble keeping track of all the rationales.

The point here was that Ari said the "war would be long, lengthy and dangerous" only after it looked like it might be. He's a liar, and a culture of lies pervades this Administration. Having these folks in charge of the armed forces is simply not a good thing.
- tom moody 4-09-2003 5:22 am [add a comment]

As the original post admitted, none of the quoted administration figures, with the possible exception of cheney, are really representative of "the white house." That would be Bush, Rice, or Fleischer.

So the gotcha was pretty watered down to begin with.

Seems to me that most administration figures (not just "The White House") said, in the quotes above and elsewhere, it will probably be short but it _could_ be long (eg Rumsfeld - "a relatively reasonably predictable length of time"). So far it seems as though they were right.




- big jimmy 4-11-2003 2:18 am [add a comment]

It's true Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz aren't technically the White House--only the main architects of the war. Qualifying language aside, the American public was sold on the idea of a fast, painless campaign; the latter it definitely wasn't, especially for "uncountable" dead and mutilated Iraqis, and the former remains to be seen. I don't find the staged statue-toppling as persuasive as some did, and the Afghan experiment doesn't bode well for the success of McNationbuilding.
- tom moody 4-11-2003 6:02 am [add a comment]

I find the tm/bj discussions the most stimulating that my somewhat limited access to media allows me. Ya'll please keep on, when you feel like it. I do think it is premature to talk about this war being over though. The toppling of a few stautues and cheering looters is just more bad TV from my perspective. Isn't our (the US) stated goal to oust the regime (surely a good thing) AND to help set up a new representative government, and stabilize the country. It looks to me as though we are barely half way towards that goal. Lastly, on a morbid note: what are they (and who are "they") doing with all the dead bodies, the thousands of dead bodies?
- jimlouis 4-11-2003 3:35 pm [add a comment]

• bagged and tagged
  - dave 4-11-2003 6:53 pm [add a comment]




• Oh, okay, thanks for the "who buries Iraqi soldiers" answer, at a 14.4 connection speed I don't really get to use the Internet to its fullest.
  - jimlouis 4-12-2003 6:12 am [add a comment]

My reference to the uncountable dead came from a NY Times article yesterday about the "problem" of counting Iraqi bodies. The Pentagon is being coy--obviously they had to have an idea of troop strengths and soldiers killed for strategic purposes, but now that we're "winning," it's keeping that info quiet for political purposes, claiming the "fog of war" and the "difficulties telling combatants from civilians." The article alludes to thousands of bodies coming into hospitals and morgues. As for what's done with the dead, you get the impression they just leave the soldiers lying and hope families will take care of it. I'm sure the Army has procedures for handling enemy dead, but I gotta think it's a low priority at the moment. see the link Dave just posted.

The Iraqi Body Count meter currently shows 1158 Min 1411 Max dead, but that's just civilians reported in major media. Add all the soldiers and I'm sure we're talking many thousands.
- tom moody 4-11-2003 6:31 pm [add a comment]

Here's an unctuous article from up-till-the-last-minute war supporter Josh Marshall about the Iraqi dead. He manages to get in some whacks at the Moral Blindness of the Antiwar Left, taking the opportunity to restate the liberal hawk position. His reference to "7,000 Muslim men and boys rounded up and executed at Srebrenica in July 1995" is an an article of faith among his group, but now that Bosnia is being is used to justify BushCo's wars, perhaps we ought to reexamine that number. The hated Serbs say it's wildly overstated--perhaps we should listen to what they have to say.
- tom moody 4-11-2003 7:44 pm [add a comment]