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Thu. Sep 04, 2003

A Commitment Crunch, Part Two

A Commitment Crunch, Part Two – Well, write nearly 3,200 words on a topic, and before you can hardly get it online, events overtake what some of what you’ve said.

For example, I suggested the Bush adminstration would only go for a small appropriation towards rebuilding Iraq. I was partially right, partially wrong. They are asking for a lot more than anticipated, but even though the article is titled “Bush to Seek $60 Billion or More for Iraq,”that’s a bit deceptive: “The White House has informed congressional leaders that it is preparing a new budget request for between $60 billion and $70 billion to help cover the mounting costs of the reconstruction and military occupation of Iraq, sources on Capitol Hill said last night.”

It sounds good so far, until you look at the last appropriation, where it went, and how this one is likely to breakdown: “The request for new money, which has yet to be formally sent to Congress, follows a $79 billion wartime budget supplement for Iraq and Afghanistan that Bush signed in April [...] Congressional aides said the White House is discussing a variety of breakdowns for the spending. But one proposal would allocate about $55 billion for the Pentagon and $10 billion for reconstruction. Most of the money would be designated for Iraq, and a small part for Afghanistan.”

I see. By the time the appropriation trickles down, the actual money made available for reconstruction efforts in Iraq may fall below $10 Billion. Bremer suggests he’ll need $3.5 Billion of that just to finish out the year. Whatever the final breakdown, the total is less than the last appropriation. A measure of commitment.

And there’s now more info on the process that led us back to the UN. This illuminating article, “Powell and Joint Chiefs Nudged Bush Toward U.N.,” confirms a lot of what I was talking about, including how essentially rudderless this process has been: “In what was billed as a routine session, Powell told Bush that they had to go to the United Nations with a resolution seeking a U.N.-sanctioned military force in Iraq—something the administration had resisted for nearly five months. Powell, whose department had long favored such an action, informed the commander in chief that the military brass supported the State Department’s position despite resistance by the Pentagon’s civilian leadership [...] Thus was a long and high-stakes bureaucratic struggle resolved, with the combined clout of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the State Department persuading a reluctant White House that the administration’s Iraq occupation policy, devised by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, simply was not working.”

The article certainly seems to point the finger of blame in one particular direction: “Sources said there was a continued lack of receptivity, however, in the office of one of Rumsfeld’s top aides, Douglas J. Feith, the undersecretary of defense for policy. Feith and his staff ‘didn’t want foreign help’ and argued ‘we can do it better than anybody else; leave us alone,’ a senior Pentagon official said [...]] ‘Rumsfeld lost credibility with the White House because he screwed up the postwar planning,’ said William Kristol, a conservative publisher with close ties to the administration. ‘For five months they let Rumsfeld have his way, and for five months Rumsfeld said everything’s fine. He wanted to do the postwar with fewer troops than a lot of people advised, and it turned out to be a mistake.’ ”

It’s nice to know who’s running the candy store, and that they keep such a close check on it, isn’t it? So now we’re left with a handful of “I told you so’s” and a trip back to the UN Dunking Booth.

The problem is the new proposal would put UN military help under US authority. And that’s not gonna fly, as nearly instantaneously, you-know-who steps up to the mike: “Speaking after a regularly scheduled bilateral meeting in the German city of Dresden, the French president, Jacques Chirac, and the German chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder, said the current draft of the U.S. resolution failed to meet their primary concerns—that political authority in Iraq be transferred to Iraqis as quickly as possible, and that the United Nations, not the United States, take over the key role in the Iraq’s postwar rebuilding.”

Between pushing a new package through Congress and wrangling an agreement with the UN, Bush now has an uphill fight, when he should be coasting downhill with momentum. Maybe Rummy has another innovative solution for that one as well.