A Few Questions for Bush Voters

[jerseyhoya34]

I've talked to a few Bush voters after the Veterans Day Offensive to figure out where they stand at the moment in terms of the Iraq War and the administration's approach. I'd be interested to hear from some of the Bush voters/supporters on the board on a few questions.

1) Do you support the "stay the course" option as advocated/advertised by the administration whereby any change in posture, approach, or policy is viewed as a sign of weakness?

2) Do you believe the above strategy is the outcome of an effort to "get it right" and establish a stable, inclusive system in Iraq, or does it serve more to rally a domestic constituency within the United States for political ends? If you believe it serves both purposes, which purpose is more salient, do you believe?

3) Was the intelligence presented in the lead up to war carefully scrutinized and presented in a fashion that would be acceptable in a scholarly publication or another venue where methodology is valued? To what extent do you believe the administration deliberately excluded certain pieces of intelligence and included others for the sake of their argument? Which was driving the argument and policy: intelligence or doctrine?

4) If you believe a change of course is necessary to some extent at this time, what would you like to see in a revised Iraq policy?

5) Where do you stand on the torture issue?

Anyway, just curious... I've heard some interesting views already offline.

[Cambridge]

jerseyhoya34 said:

I've talked to a few Bush voters after the Veterans Day Offensive to figure out where they stand at the moment in terms of the Iraq War and the administration's approach. I'd be interested to hear from some of the Bush voters/supporters on the board on a few questions.

1) Do you support the "stay the course" option as advocated/advertised by the administration whereby any change in posture, approach, or policy is viewed as a sign of weakness?

2) Do you believe the above strategy is the outcome of an effort to "get it right" and establish a stable, inclusive system in Iraq, or does it serve more to rally a domestic constituency within the United States for political ends? If you believe it serves both purposes, which purpose is more salient, do you believe?

3) Was the intelligence presented in the lead up to war carefully scrutinized and presented in a fashion that would be acceptable in a scholarly publication or another venue where methodology is valued? To what extent do you believe the administration deliberately excluded certain pieces of intelligence and included others for the sake of their argument? Which was driving the argument and policy: intelligence or doctrine?

4) If you believe a change of course is necessary to some extent at this time, what would you like to see in a revised Iraq policy?

Anyway, just curious... I've heard some interesting views already offline.

I'm not a Bush supporter by any means but even I would object to some of the compounded and misleading questions.

1. For example...while I agree that the Bush policy is to some degree motivated by stubborness, I don't see much room for deviation at this point. Pulling out would be a far greater danger than remaining in. Therefore, I agree with the current Bush policy but don't agree with the way it is advocated.

2. Again, while I have suspicion that the later is a key motivator, you can not deny that the former is a completely valid and central concern.

3. No, but is that the standard that intelligence should be held to. I imagine that in the modern era when threat timelines are compacted by the increases in technology; analysis and decisions have to be made much quicker and more decisively than anything that ever happens in academia. Therefore, I have trouble with the academic standard of peer review being applied to "game day" type decision environment. However, I do think things were intentionally omitted, but I can't imagine they were done for malicious reasons. More than likely the intelligence picture was a complete mess with conflicting information supporting various different conclussions. Realizing that they must act decisively rather than risk another attack while sitting on their hands, the went forward with their best guess and ignored as much static as they could. Bad move in retrospect, but at the time it is difficult to judge whether anyone would have made a substantially different decision. You have to remember how raw the nation felt at the time of the collection of data, analysis and decision...that certainly colored everyone's decision making process from intelligence to decisionmakers.

4. Unfortunately, while I didn't agree with invading Iraq I see no alternative to the current course. While it may be possible to turn it over to the UN to administer, that seems far fetched to some degree. Leaving Iraq would potentially leave the region even more dangerous than how we found it and have made it. Hard to believe, but the threat of a "Khurdistan" inciting civil wars and such in the entire region is terrigying when you consider that that would likely effect Iran, Syria, Turkey to name a few.

[jerseyhoya34]

Agreed that some of the questions could have been framed better, but any question on this issue is liable to have a bias, and there are few appropriate analogies/comparisons to the Iraqi case.

1. I agree that we need to stay in, but I don't believe that our current approach to state-building is a wise one. So, I don't see the issue as one of staying vs. leaving because I think that question is more or less settled, in spite of some rhetoric from the left.

2. I am not sure to what degree the administration is serious about "getting it right" because it has maintained a course that does not seem to be getting it done in the face of some problems that most people acknowledge. That said, I do think their military approach was sound and perhaps preparing for the second phase of the thing was not easy.

3. The analogy of peer review was poor, I admit, but I am trying to get at whether there was foul play with the intelligence. None of us has seen it, I assume, but I have some serious questions about the degree of candor having read some non-partisan, or, at least, journalistic accounts of the processes by which the intelligence was analyzed/used by political appointees and executive officials.

4. I think perhaps the "third way" in this is seeking to involve other governments like we've done in Afghanistan. While there will be some pushback to that idea because of the administration's immature pre-war rhetoric toward these governments, I believe some might actually come on board if given the chance because of the obvious risk of a failed state in Iraq. As such, I think the current debate of "stay or leave" is doing a disservice to some of the other options that stand a better chance of success without hemorraging our budget and bogging down our troops in what is ostensibly a state-building operation for which they have minimal training.

[SFHoya99]

I think Bush is semi-incompetent.

My answers below.

1) Do you support the stay the course option as advocated/advertised by the administration whereby any change in posture, approach, or policy is viewed as a sign of weakness?

I hate trying to speculate on motive. So I will just say this: pulling out now would be a worse mistake than going in was. Just awful.


2) Do you believe the above strategy is the outcome of an effort to "get it right" and establish a stable, inclusive system in Iraq, or does it serve more to rally a domestic constituency within the United States for political ends? If you believe it serves both purposes, which purpose is more salient, do you believe?

Like I said, I don't like to speculate on intent.

3) Was the intelligence presented in the lead up to war carefully scrutinized and presented in a fashion that would be acceptable in a scholarly publication or another venue where methodology is valued? To what extent do you believe the administration deliberately excluded certain pieces of intelligence and included others for the sake of their argument? Which was driving the argument and policy: intelligence or doctrine?

I think you are overestimating the lack of bias in academia, but either way, I am fairly convinced the administration wanted to attack Iraq and selected intelligence to support their previous conclusion. This is by no means unusual in any organization, but it is a shame.

4) If you believe a change of course is necessary to some extent at this time, what would you like to see in a revised Iraq policy?

My revisions would be more active nation-building. We have been slow to deliver vital infrastructure and other services. We have made the Iraqi people our responsibility. Let's live up to it.

5) Where do you stand on the torture issue?

I think there is a lack of executive control by the administration for whatever reason -- either intentional or unintentional.