New York Times Editorial Op-Ed
June 3, 2003
Standard Operating Procedure
By PAUL KRUGMAN
The
mystery of Iraq's missing weapons of mass destruction has become a lot
less mysterious. Recent reports in major British newspapers and three
major American news magazines, based on leaks from angry intelligence
officials, back up the sources who told my colleague Nicholas Kristof
that the Bush administration "grossly manipulated intelligence" about W.M.D.'s.
And anyone who talks about an "intelligence failure" is missing the point. The problem lay not with intelligence professionals, but with the Bush and Blair administrations. They wanted a war, so they demanded reports supporting their case, while dismissing contrary evidence.
In Britain, the news media have not been shy about drawing the
obvious implications, and the outrage has not been limited to war
opponents. The Times of London was ardently pro-war; nonetheless, it
ran an analysis under the headline "Lie Another Day." The paper drew
parallels between the selling of the war and other misleading claims:
"The government is seen as having `spun' the threat from Saddam's
weapons just as it spins everything else."
Yet few have made the same argument in this country, even though "spin" is far too mild a word for what the Bush administration does, all the time. Suggestions that the public was manipulated into supporting an Iraq war gain credibility from the fact that misrepresentation
and deception are standard operating procedure for this administration,
which — to an extent never before seen in U.S. history — systematically
and brazenly distorts the facts.
Am I exaggerating? Even as George Bush stunned reporters by declaring that we have "found the weapons of mass destruction," the Republican National Committee declared that the latest tax cut benefits "everyone who pays taxes." That is simply a lie.
You've heard about those eight million children denied any tax break by
a last-minute switcheroo. In total, 50 million American households —
including a majority of those with members over 65 — get nothing;
another 20 million receive less than $100 each. And a great majority of
those left behind do pay taxes.
And the bald-faced misrepresentation of an elitist tax cut offering
little or nothing to most Americans is only the latest in a long string
of blatant misstatements. Misleading
the public has been a consistent strategy for the Bush team on issues
ranging from tax policy and Social Security reform to energy and the
environment. So why should we give the administration the benefit of the doubt on foreign policy?
It's long past time for this administration to be held accountable.
Over the last two years we've become accustomed to the pattern. Each
time the administration comes up with another whopper, partisan
supporters — a group that includes a large segment of the news media —
obediently insist that black is white and up is down. Meanwhile the
"liberal" media report only that some people say that black is black
and up is up. And some Democratic politicians offer the administration
invaluable cover by making excuses and playing down the extent of the
lies.
If this same lack of accountability extends to matters of war and
peace, we're in very deep trouble. The British seem to understand this:
Max Hastings, the veteran war correspondent — who supported Britain's
participation in the war — writes that "the prime minister committed
British troops and sacrificed British lives on the basis of a deceit,
and it stinks."
It's no answer to say that Saddam was a murderous tyrant.
I could point out that many of the neoconservatives who fomented this
war were nonchalant, or worse, about mass murders by Central American
death squads in the 1980's. But the important point is that this isn't about Saddam: it's about us. The public was told that Saddam posed an imminent threat. If that claim was fraudulent, the
selling of the war is arguably the worst scandal in American political
history — worse than Watergate, worse than Iran-contra.
Indeed, the idea that we were deceived into war makes many commentators
so uncomfortable that they refuse to admit the possibility.
But here's the thought that should make those commentators really
uncomfortable. Suppose that this administration did con us into war.
And suppose that it is not held accountable for its deceptions, so Mr.
Bush can fight what Mr. Hastings calls a "khaki election" next year. In
that case, our political system has become utterly, and perhaps
irrevocably, corrupted.