The Fall of the House of Bush by Craig Unger

Author:Craig Unger
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2007-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

It was in this brazen and grandiose context that Brent Scowcroft, perhaps not conniving enough for his times, stepped out of the shadows and, in his quiet deliberate manner, began his own mini–media campaign to try to head off war with Iraq—one man against the neocons. Scowcroft discussed with the former president what he was doing, not just because he was on a collision course with his good friend’s son, but because it was such a delicate matter. In short order, he appeared on Fox News, BBC, and, on August 4, CBS’s Face the Nation —with the elder Bush’s blessing.

Each time, Scowcroft’s case was essentially the same one he and the senior George Bush had crafted during the Gulf War and in A World Transformed. On Face the Nation, he warned that a unilateral invasion of Iraq could destabilize the Middle East and undermine efforts to defeat international anti-American militant groups. “It’s a matter of setting your priorities,” he said. “There’s no question that Saddam is a problem. He has already launched two wars and spent all the resources he can working on his military. But the president has announced that terrorism is our number one focus. Saddam is a problem, but he’s not a problem because of terrorism.”

According to a source who was familiar with Scowcroft’s efforts, Bush senior “appreciated the effort that was being made and understood what was going on.” For the most part, however, Scowcroft, though still chairman of the Presidential Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, was working at an abstract level trying to create a different discourse about the Middle East. After more than two decades in the inner sanctum of the White House, he had been shut out of key policy discussions, and was now almost entirely removed from the machinations that had set the policy machine in motion.

Worse, in an administration that boasted high-profile centrists such as Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, Scowcroft stood alone. His qualms about the rush to war notwithstanding, Powell, Hamlet-like, did not act to slow the momentum. By May 2002, appearing on ABC’s This Week, Powell had effectively bowed to the pressures of the neocons. “The United States reserves its option to do whatever it believes might be appropriate to see if there can be a regime change….” he said. “U.S. policy is that regardless of what the inspectors do, the people of Iraq and the people of the region would be better off with a different regime in Baghdad.” 129

So, when it came to framing the essential foreign policy questions of the day, the questions that would ultimately mean war or peace, life or death to thousands of people, and the fate of America’s strategic position in the world, Scowcroft was relying on his old protégée National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, who had become very close to the president. But Rice, either because she lacked Scowcroft’s convictions or because she did not have the bureaucratic savvy to outwit the neocons, or perhaps both, failed to frame Scowcroft’s policies as an option for Bush to consider.

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