As usual, in his radio address, Bush took no blame for invading Iraq under the false argument of non-existent WMD stockpiles; nor for the tens of thousands of civilian deaths, including many children; nor for the spread of al-Qaeda operations inside Iraq; nor for the seething anti-Americanism around the globe.
Clearly, too, Bush has no intention of admitting that he committed war crimes by invading a non-threatening country under false pretenses and by killing innocent civilians in the process. But Bush also is showing no inclination to stop his addiction to misrepresenting the facts or engaging in risky wishful thinking.
At Consortiumnews.com, we have warned about the danger of Bush's wishful thinking from the first days of the war. On March 30, 2003, 11 days into the U.S. invasion, as Iraqi forces were putting up surprising resistance, I cited U.S. military analysts who were already worried about Bush's miscalculations.
"That is the view slowly dawning on U.S. military analysts, who privately are asking whether the cost of ousting Saddam Hussein has grown so large that 'victory' will constitute a strategic defeat of historic proportions. At best, even assuming Saddam's ouster, the Bush administration may be looking at an indefinite period of governing something akin to a California-size Gaza Strip.
"The chilling realization is spreading in Washington that Bush's Iraqi debacle may be the mother of all presidential miscalculations - an extraordinary blend of Bay of Pigs-style wishful thinking with a 'Black Hawk Down' reliance on special operations to wipe out enemy leaders as a short-cut to victory.
"But the magnitude of the Iraq disaster could be far worse than either the Bay of Pigs fiasco in Cuba in 1961 or the bloody miscalculations in Somalia in 1993. In both those cases, the U.S. government showed the tactical flexibility to extricate itself from military misjudgments without grave strategic damage. "
"Few analysts today, however, believe that George W. Bush and his senior advisers, including Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, have the common sense to swallow the short-term bitter medicine of a cease-fire or a U.S. withdrawal.
"Rather than face the political music for admitting to the gross error of ordering an invasion in defiance of the United Nations and then misjudging the enemy, these U.S. leaders are expected to push forward no matter how bloody or ghastly their future course might be.
"Without doubt, the Bush administration misjudged the biggest question of the war: 'Would the Iraqis fight?' Happy visions of rose petals and cheers have given way to a grim reality of ambushes and suicide bombs.
"But the Bush pattern of miscalculation continues unabated. Bush seems to have cut himself off from internal dissent at the CIA and the Pentagon, where intelligence analysts and field generals warned against the wishful thinking that is proving lethal on the Iraqi battlefields." [See Consortiumnews.com's "Bay of Pigs Meets Black Hawk Down."]
More Happy Talk
On May 23, 2005, we revisited Bush's dangerous tendency to ignore cautionary intelligence.
"In Iraq, George W. Bush has demonstrated an old truism of geopolitics, wishful thinking mixed with bellicose rhetoric makes for a deadly cocktail," the article said. "The question now is: can the U.S. political system wean itself from an addiction to this poisonous brew of swagger and delusion?
"So far, the Bush administration shows no sign of getting on the wagon and looking at the facts with a clear eye. Instead, it's still talking tough and demanding that everyone concentrate on the few glimmers of progress amid the death and destruction.
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