[Mb-civic] GREAT PIECE: Bush follows Johnson's logic - The Boston Globe

[William Swiggard]

  Bush follows Johnson's logic

By Derrick Z. Jackson  |  March 22, 2006  |  The Boston Globe

WITH DISAPPROVAL ratings for his handling of Iraq now at 65 percent in 
the latest Newsweek poll, President Bush reached down into President 
Johnson's magic hat for an illusion. In a speech in Cleveland, Bush 
talked about the voters of Tal Afar.

''The recent elections show us how Iraqis respond when they know they 
are safe," Bush said. ''Tal Afar is the largest city in Western Nineveh 
Province. In the elections held in January 2005, of about 190,000 
registered voters, only 32,000 people went to the polls. Only Fallujah 
had a lower participation rate.

''By the time of the October referendum on the constitution and the 
December elections, Iraqi and coalition forces had secured Tal Afar from 
surrounding areas. The number of registered voters rose to about 204,000 
and more than 175,000 turned out to vote in each election, more than 85 
percent of the eligible voters in Western Nineveh Province. These 
citizens turned out because they were determined to have a say in their 
nation's future and they cast their ballots at polling stations that 
were guarded and secured by fellow Iraqis."

This was reminiscent of a news conference President Johnson held in 
November of 1967, when the percentage of Americans who thought Vietnam 
was a mistake was closing in on 50 percent in the Gallup poll.

''In the midst of all the horrors of war, in guerrilla fighting in South 
Vietnam, we have had five elections in a period of a little over 14 
months," Johnson said. ''. . . To think that here in the midst of war 
when the grenades are popping like firecrackers all around you, that 
two-thirds or three-fourths of the people would register and vote and 
have five elections in 13 months -- and through the democratic process 
select people at the local level, a constituent assembly, a house of 
representatives, a senate, a president, and a vice president -- that is 
encouraging. The fact that the population under free control has 
constantly risen, and that under Communist control has constantly gone 
down, is a very encouraging sign."

Four months later, a discouraged Johnson, his illusions shattered by the 
Tet Offensive, would announce that he would not run for reelection. In 
Bush's case, the trick was picking one city that seems stable, despite 
our probable inability to stabilize the entire nation on our own. Rand 
military analysts determined that it would take 500,000 troops -- our 
peak Vietnam-era troop strength -- to achieve successful nation-building 
in Iraq. We currently have about 133,000 troops there.

''According to the lessons learned," the Rand study said, ''the ultimate 
consequences for Iraq of a failure to generate adequate international 
manpower and money are likely to be lower levels of security, higher 
casualties sustained and inflicted, lower economic growth rates, and 
slower, less thoroughgoing political transformation."

Bush did acknowledge that the progress in the rest of Iraq is not the 
same as in Tal Afar. But he went on to claim that the city's example 
''gives me confidence in our strategy, because in this city, we see the 
outlines of the Iraq that we and the Iraqi people have been fighting for."

With 133,000 troops only being an outline of what security analysts feel 
is needed, Bush's illusion of the minimalist explodes with every car 
bomb. This is the White House that famously dissed the estimate of 
then-Army chief of staff Eric Shinseki that ''several hundred thousand 
soldiers" would be needed in postwar Iraq. Paul Wolfowitz, then the 
deputy defense secretary, said Shinseki was ''wildly off the mark."

This was the same Wolfowitz who said in the same testimony on Capitol 
Hill that success would come with minimal force in Iraq because, 
''There's been none of the record in Iraq of ethnic militias fighting 
one another that produced so much bloodshed and permanent scars in 
Bosnia, along with a continuing requirement for large peacekeeping 
forces to separate those militias."

We know who was wildly off the mark now, with Iraq's former interim 
prime minister, Ayad Allawi, telling the BBC this weekend, ''If this is 
not civil war, then God knows what civil war is." This earned Allawi a 
personal dissing by Bush. In September of 2004, Bush praised Allawi for 
his courage and leadership. In a news conference yesterday, Bush 
answered a question about Allawi's statement to the BBC by saying, 
''There are other voices coming out of Iraq, by the way, other than Mr. 
Allawi."

It is all a sign that Bush, like Johnson, is hearing voices.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/03/22/bush_follows_johnsons_logic/
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