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Hey, I'm Michael

0:23

Loner, and this is the on the media

0:25

midweek podcast. It

0:28

was twenty years ago this week

0:30

that president George w Bush announced

0:32

the beginning of the war in Iraq,

0:35

setting off an invasion and occupation

0:38

that cast a long grim shadow

0:40

on my orders Coalition forces

0:43

have begun striking selected targets of

0:45

military importance to undermine

0:47

Saddam Hussein's ability to wage

0:49

war. These are opening

0:51

stages of what will be a broad

0:53

and concerted campaign.

0:55

Broad indeed, especially as

0:57

the decades past and those responsible

1:00

refused to leave the spotlight. Take

1:02

for instance John Bolton, the hawkish

1:05

talking head for Fox and the former

1:07

UN ambassador who made a brief

1:09

cameo in government as Trump's

1:11

third national security

1:12

adviser. We know the ambassador very

1:15

well. He was one of the

1:17

cheerleaders for the Iraq invasion in two

1:19

thousand and three, which ended disastrously unlike

1:21

me who feels very guilt about my support

1:23

of that invasion back in those days.

1:26

At the ambassador's time, it made sense. Well,

1:28

we we like to think so. The ambassador

1:30

on apologetic about

1:31

it. He still believes it was a good idea. Alder

1:34

was correct. Because as we

1:36

cling to what we like to think about Iraq,

1:39

there's a crucial lesson still unlearned.

1:42

In twenty eighteen, on the fifteenth

1:44

anniversary of the start of the conflict, Brooke

1:47

spoke to New York Times columnist Max

1:49

Fisher, who, as Brooke put it at the

1:52

time, gently schooled us.

1:54

I think if you ask most Americans,

1:57

how did this war actually start?

2:00

Democrats will typically tell you

2:02

Well, George W. Bush for cynical

2:05

reasons wanted to go to war in Iraq. So

2:07

he made up this live Iraqi WMT

2:09

to justify it. And then if you ask

2:11

Republicans, the more common

2:13

answer is he meant well, but he was misled

2:16

by faulty intelligence. You

2:18

wrote that in two thousand sixteen,

2:21

we could actually see both narratives collide

2:24

in various Republican primary

2:26

debates. For instance, let's

2:28

hear what Trump said. I wanna tell you,

2:30

they lied. Okay. He said there were weapons

2:32

of mass destruction, there were none, and

2:34

they knew there were none. And here's Jeb

2:36

Bush.

2:37

With faulty intelligence and not having

2:39

security be the

2:40

first priority when when we

2:42

invaded, it was a mistake. And what these

2:44

two answers have in common is

2:46

they personalize everything down

2:48

to one or two people. Someone

2:50

lied or someone was innocently misled.

2:53

It's little bit more complicated. It

2:55

was really ideology. We've all heard

2:57

this word Neoconservatism. And I

2:59

think that we sometimes use that

3:02

to just mean a hawkish but

3:04

it really is this very specific ideological

3:07

movement that comes out of the cold war. That

3:10

says that it is America's mission

3:12

in the world to bring democracy to

3:14

all people, that allowing

3:16

any anti American government to

3:18

exist is a threat to the

3:20

entire global order.

3:22

So this ideology, does

3:25

it arise out of Arriguez,

3:28

this absolutely bulletproof belief

3:30

in American exceptionalism

3:33

and its its role in the world,

3:35

or does it arise out of fear? It's

3:37

both. I I find it totally fascinating.

3:40

This belief that there is something

3:42

totally different about the United States

3:45

that makes the presence

3:47

and imposition of American military power,

3:50

a source of absolute good and that

3:52

we need to bring freedom to all people and they really

3:54

crave American dominance. But it

3:56

also comes from this cold war

3:58

fear that if unfriendly

4:01

governments are allowed to

4:02

exist, that the entire world

4:04

will turn against us and everything

4:06

could collapse. So tell me

4:10

how the focus shifted

4:12

specifically to Iraq. We

4:15

know that in the first gulf war in the nineties,

4:18

Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait

4:20

George Bush gets together an international

4:23

coalition and pushes him

4:24

out, then what? He

4:27

encouraged the Iraqi people to rise up

4:29

against their government. He didn't

4:31

really mean it. So then when they rose up

4:33

expecting American help, they were slaughtered

4:35

by Saddam's forces For

4:37

the Neoconservatism in the Georgia Beach W Bush

4:40

administration, what happened

4:42

to the people of a rock that rose up was just

4:44

a metaphor for what would happen to the entire

4:46

world if the United States ever

4:49

faltered in topping an adversary,

4:51

replacing it with a democratic government, which

4:53

then curdled into this

4:55

obsession that we had to go

4:58

back to Iraq and

5:00

finish the job. Who were the

5:02

key players that were pushing this

5:04

ideology? It's all

5:06

your favorites, Brooke. It's a

5:08

handful of Republican

5:11

defense officials from

5:14

the Reagan and George h w Bush

5:16

administration, people like Richard Pearl, Paul

5:18

Wolfowitz. But the really big leaders

5:21

were these kind of elbow patched

5:24

academics mostly based in Washington,

5:26

D. C. And New York. And they didn't really have a

5:28

constituency. But after the nineteen

5:30

ninety six election, new Cambridge is kind of

5:32

the party leader. He's really desperate

5:34

for some way to show that

5:37

the GOP is still the party of ideas.

5:39

And I think he was less concerned with

5:42

the policy implications of

5:44

those ideas than whether they were

5:47

ideasy enough to kind of

5:49

rebrand the party as the brilliant

5:51

intelligent party. So here's this

5:54

ideology out of the academy.

5:56

And it works great as well politically

5:59

because at this point, Saddam Hussein

6:01

is being very difficult with the United States

6:03

about weapons inspections, and he's kind of

6:05

like thumbing his nose at the Americans left

6:07

and right, which We know now was because

6:09

he feared domestic unrest and felt like he

6:11

needed to make a big show of toughness in

6:13

order to avoid a coup. But

6:16

the Republicans were able to seize on

6:18

this to embarrass Bill Clinton and to

6:20

say, you know, look at this, this dictator

6:22

is humiliating our country And

6:24

this was in the midst of the Lewinsky

6:26

scandal, so he's particularly vulnerable. Right.

6:28

Exactly. So Republicans pass

6:31

something called the Iraq

6:33

Liberation

6:34

Act, and Clinton signs it.

6:37

And what it

6:37

says is that United States

6:39

policy is now to seek regime

6:42

change in Iraq. A new

6:45

government that is committed to

6:47

represent and respect its

6:49

people, not repress them.

6:51

That is committed to peace in

6:53

the region, which I

6:56

think to a lot of people at the time probably

6:58

including Republican lawmakers, including

7:00

the Clinton house. This kind of just

7:02

looked like an empty gesture. Mhmm. But

7:04

for the Neoconservatism actually wrote

7:07

the

7:07

act, This was the culmination of Sunday

7:09

they had fought for for years. We

7:12

all know what happens next. George

7:14

w Bush is elected, and he brings

7:16

stable of NeoCon's and fellow travelers

7:19

like Paul Wolfowitz and Donald

7:22

Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney into his administration.

7:25

Then comes nine eleven, and

7:28

then So if

7:30

you're George w Bush,

7:33

And this thing happens, you probably

7:35

respond the way that most of us did,

7:37

which is to be just totally baffled.

7:40

Neoconservatism presents a

7:43

fully formed complete

7:45

footnoted ideology and

7:48

world's view for understanding the September

7:50

eleven attacks. The reason that this

7:52

happened, the reason that there's extremism really

7:55

anywhere in the world, but especially in the Muslim world,

7:57

is because the United States

7:59

let Saddam Hussein stay in

8:01

power and the administration starts

8:04

looking for proof that Saddam

8:06

had specifically sponsored the

8:08

attack. When you're in that moment

8:11

of

8:12

panic and you have this answer at hand.

8:14

It's what everybody ended up reaching for.

8:17

You wrote in your two thousand sixteen vox

8:19

article that The Bush Cheney

8:21

White House didn't seek to trick America

8:23

into that war, but rather

8:25

tricked themselves When

8:27

challenged on this, you offer how

8:30

actively they tried to

8:32

find the evidence of weapons

8:34

of mass destruction

8:36

once they got into Iraq. Right.

8:38

Look at the way that they feed themselves

8:41

raw intelligence. Right? They cut out the CIA.

8:43

They don't trust them. CIA doesn't at it. Only

8:45

we understand we're gonna look at the wrong intelligence.

8:47

And they find these crazy sources,

8:50

these Iraqi egg cells in Egypt to tell

8:52

them what they wanna believe. And they trot

8:54

these guys out and they hold up

8:56

in front of the entire world this evidence

8:59

that they have

8:59

found. And I don't think they would do that unless

9:01

they believe that it would stand up to scrutiny. Okay.

9:04

But even if they were true

9:06

believers max, they

9:08

did still try to trick the American people.

9:10

Right? Because as you wrote, They

9:13

told us that was about weapons

9:15

of mass destruction, and then they told us

9:17

it was about connections to al Qaeda

9:19

when in fact It was this preexisting

9:22

ideology all along. I

9:25

think that's true. I think that's true. But

9:27

I don't think they saw it as

9:29

presenting a disingenuous case.

9:31

I think that they believed that

9:34

saying that Saddam has

9:36

or will develop weapons of mass destruction

9:39

that will threaten the United States, arguing

9:41

that Saddam is sponsoring terrorists, whether

9:44

or not it's say true, it

9:46

is in their view true in the deeper

9:48

sense that allowing Saddam

9:50

to exist will naturally lead to

9:52

terrorists. And none of this is true to

9:54

be clear. What do you say

9:56

to people on the left who say you're

9:58

being a little too generous Neoconservatism

10:02

has always been money or oil

10:04

or American geopolitical dominance

10:07

and all the humanitarian stuff

10:09

about how it makes the world

10:12

better place is just a flimsy cover.

10:15

I've heard that criticism. To me,

10:18

the hubris and the arrogance

10:21

in believing that you are

10:23

so superior to the rest of the world,

10:25

that going into other

10:27

people's countries and using

10:29

violence in force to bring them into chaos

10:32

is actually not

10:34

just good, but morally necessary. I

10:36

mean, that strikes me as such

10:39

a more dangerous idea than

10:42

the notion that we went in to steal the oil

10:45

because then it could lead to a

10:47

war any place. Because

10:49

it says that no country can

10:52

legitimately make a choice to

10:55

be aligned against the United

10:57

States. That that's not just threatening to

10:59

us, but that is inherently a

11:01

threat to the entire world in a way that morally

11:04

compels the destruction of that

11:05

government. It it's amazing to

11:07

me. So what about the

11:09

people who pushed for

11:12

it? And are still very much with us.

11:14

The weekly standards Bill Crystal, because

11:17

of his anti Trump stance is a

11:19

popular talking head on MSNBC,

11:23

former Bush speech writer David Frum,

11:26

who coined the term access of evil,

11:28

now weighs in on outlets like SLAID and

11:30

VOXX. And of course, there's John Bolton

11:33

In the White House, why

11:35

hasn't there been a more serious reckoning

11:38

with the consequences of this war

11:41

and who pushed for it? There's

11:43

really not incentive for

11:45

a kind of Republican cleaning house

11:47

because you wouldn't have anybody

11:49

left. And even among the Democratic party,

11:52

Barack Obama. He would always say look

11:54

forward, not backward, and that was specifically in

11:56

regards to prosecuting torture, but it became

11:59

more of a mantra of you know,

12:01

the party's interests are not served by

12:03

trying to excise this

12:05

ideology from polite

12:08

Washington policy circles. DC

12:10

is a really small town. Everybody is

12:13

friends with somebody who either

12:15

was or works for someone who was

12:17

involved in launching the Iraq

12:19

War. It's not easy to

12:22

clean house like that and nobody wants to do it.

12:24

But, I

12:24

mean, you don't have to clean house if people just

12:26

change their minds. Yeah, but then

12:28

you would have to

12:30

confront how wrong you were.

12:32

I mean, could you imagine waking

12:35

up in the morning and thinking

12:37

I had some really wrong headed beliefs

12:40

and it got tens of thousands of Americans

12:42

and potentially hundreds of thousands of Iraqis

12:44

killed in a war that really is

12:47

still raging, or

12:49

you could wake up and say, you know, I did my best

12:51

and I was misled by faulty intelligence, and

12:54

I don't need to worry too much about it. We're

12:56

all gonna make the latter choice.

12:58

When the post came out

13:00

about the Pentagon papers, we called up Les

13:03

Gelb. Who was the

13:05

person in the Pentagon, who put the

13:07

Pentagon papers together, who

13:09

talked about how he

13:11

had ultimately changed his mind about

13:13

the war, but it was too late. And

13:15

there's this tremendous echo because you say

13:18

it wasn't about bush lying. But

13:21

about being a true believer. Gelb

13:24

said the lesson of the

13:26

pentagon papers was more

13:28

or less the

13:29

same. The story has been put out

13:31

to the Pentagon papers, showed they

13:33

were all lying. But while

13:35

the paper shows some lies, The

13:37

main message is that

13:40

our leaders from Truman onwards didn't

13:43

know hardly anything about Vietnam

13:45

and into China. They were ignorant. And

13:48

it also shows that foreign

13:50

policy community, believe that if we lost

13:52

Vietnam, the rest of Asia would

13:54

fall. And that was kind of

13:56

a given. And look,

13:58

because we never learned that darn lesson.

14:02

About believing our way into these wars.

14:04

We went into Afghanistan, and we

14:06

went into Iraq.

14:08

You really do

14:10

hear ideological echoes in the way

14:12

that these officials in the Trump

14:14

administration, some of whom were the same ones

14:16

around for the Iraqi invasion, talk

14:18

about Iran and North Korea. It's

14:20

not just about do they

14:22

pose an immediate threat to US interest.

14:25

It's about the need

14:27

for us to impose

14:29

American power on the world. American

14:32

foreign policy has always been so

14:35

ideological I mean, if you go back to

14:37

some of the very first wars against Native

14:39

Americans, right? It was driven by manifest

14:41

destiny in this belief that we're special

14:43

and we're different. It's core to

14:45

who we see ourselves as

14:48

being, but we keep making

14:50

the same mistakes. And, you know,

14:52

we're gonna make it again.

14:55

Max, thank you very much. Thank

14:57

you. New York Times writer,

15:00

Max, Fisher.

15:03

Thanks for listening to the OTM podcast.

15:05

On this week's big show, we're airing

15:07

the final part of our award

15:10

winning series, The Divided Dial. It's

15:12

an investigative look at the rise of right

15:14

wing Talk Radio. I'm Michael

15:16

Lowinger. See you.