Losing the War

September 29, 2004

Here are some quotes from today’s Washington Post , from intelligence and military officials, most of them anonymous. They’re exactly like the ones I’ve been getting all year from similar officials. This week, in this space, I’ve been writing about the need for more leaks from U.S. officials to highlight Bush’s bungling in Iraq. It’s not just about quotes to a newspaper reporter. These officials need to leak documents, or resign and speak out in public, with their names attached. Not to do so is allow the re-election a president who launched an illegal war.

Okay, the quotes:

“There’s not obvious way to fix it. The best we can hope for is a semi-failed state hobbling along with terrorists and a succession of weak governments.”

“It’s getting worse. It just seems that there is a lot of pessimism flowing out of the theater now. There are things going on that are unbelievable to me. They have infiltrators conducing attacks in the Green Zone. That was not the case a year ago.”

“They keep telling us that Iraqi security forces are the exit strategy, but from what I hear from the ground is that they aren’t working. There’s a feeling that Iraqi security forces are in cahoots with the insurgents and the general public to get the occupiers out.”

“There’s a real war going on here that’s not just” the CIA against the administration on Iraq “but the State Department and the military” as well.”

Tomorrow night, Kerry gets one chance, and one chance only, to win the domestic war over Iraq. He needs to look the president in the eye and tell him that the war was wrong, that he deceived the American people (and their senators) about the threat from Iraq, that he doesn’t know enough about foreign affairs to understand the consequences of the bad advice he gets from hawkish advisers, and that we are losing the war. He has to say,  “The American people know that this was is not making them safer. The American people need to know that it was a costly, needless mistake. And now, according to our own military and our own CIA, we are losing the war.” He needs to say it over and over. (Memo to Kerry’s wordsmiths: No big words.) He needs to have a simple message, and repeat it and repeat it. If they ask him about Russia, he needs to say: “How can we deal with the problems in Russia when we are engaged in a losing war that was a mistake in the first place?” If they ask him about Iran, he has to say: “We can’t deal with Iran now because we are losing a war in Iraq, in a way that is helping Iran get stronger.”

Then Kerry needs to present an exit strategy. “The president got us into this mistaken war. I can get us out. He can’t.” And he needs to say that over and over, too. The pundit establishment says Kerry can’t present an exit strategy that is different from Bush’s. He can. Kerry has to stop talking about getting the French to help us, and start talking about getting out. How do you get out of Iraq? By leaving. Time to leave.