Chapter 136: Waiting

February to September 2001

George Bush had a serious agenda to remodel the country and the government, and it became obvious at an early stage. He planned to make some wholesale changes in the way things were done.

Well, that is probably an overstatement. What was much more accurate was that George’s backers had very serious plans, and George was along for the ride. To what extent he knew that he was overmatched was questionable. From what I could see working with the man, he was quite possibly the dumbest President we had suffered under since Warren Harding! I might even have to go back to some of the idiots who were in charge of the country before the Civil War to find a match. Certainly, he had no native talent for management.

It was much more accurate to say that he paid the greatest heed to the last fellow who talked to him. It became a gigantic wrestling match to become that person. His instincts were conservative, and that was fine, but he let his deputies and department heads craft his agenda, not the other way around. They would make plans and then talk him into them. Cheney and Rove were the leaders of this group, and it was all the moderates could do to try and hold their own.

Taxes? They needed to be lowered, drastically! He envisioned tax cuts for all eight years of his Presidency, or at least the Wall Street types envisioned them for him. We had a bunch of them around. And loopholes! We needed more loopholes!

The military? That needed to be strengthened, really grown! So said the defense contractors who wanted to sell their latest goodies, and the Pentagon generals and admirals who wanted to buy them.

Medicare? For a guy who had pushed against entitlements, he was very much in favor of increasing benefits that mostly benefited the insurance companies and the drug companies.

Compassionate conservatism? Nobody really understood it, but it seemed that it involved bringing in the hard-right fundamentalist branch of the Christian churches. They set up a faith-based initiatives group in the West Wing to do something to liaison with church-run charities, and Ashcroft began loading up the Justice Department with lawyers who graduated from Liberty University and other Bible colleges.

Foreign policy? Cheney and Wolfowitz and a shitload of chickenhawks were champing at the bit to start a new war in the Middle East. They believed that the first President Bush had screwed up by not conquering Iraq when he had the chance. Now they envisioned doing it right, in a new war, one which would bring freedom and democracy to the country, and from there spread to the surrounding nations. It would be quick and easy and profitable to boot! In this they were happily aided by George himself, who considered his father’s quite reasoned ending of the Gulf War as a defeat. George would solve the problem his father had let fester.

The Cabinet was not a happy place. It wasn’t quite open war, but it came close. On the right you had an axis based on Cheney, Wolfowitz, and Ashcroft, all of them full of grand plans to reform America and the world. We were a Christian nation with Christian values, and we should be damn well giving those values to the rest of the planet, whether the rest of the planet wanted them or not! Wall Street was to be allowed the proper level of freedom to bring the benefits of American style capitalism first to Main Street, and then to the rest of the world. On the other side of the equation were the moderates, those with ties to the liberal or moderate wing of the party. The main axis on this side was O’Neill, Powell, and myself, and I wondered how long that would last.

The mood of the Republican Party was still swinging rightward, and moderates were the new liberals, something to be branded as un-American. As Whip I had been able to keep many of the Congressional idiots muzzled and out of power, but that was changing. Since the Republicans retained control of the House in the last elections, some of the crazies had more seniority and had moved up in their committees and subcommittees. With longevity grew power, and John Boehner was not being as successful at keeping them from getting out of hand. In Congress, the bottom line was that if the President wanted to do something crazy, he had a ready audience and an eager band of helpers.

Dick Cheney seemed to spend almost as much time at the White House as he did at Foggy Bottom, the neighborhood that was home to the State Department. In this he was aided by his right-hand man, Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby, who he had gotten confirmed as his Deputy Secretary of State. Scooter was Dick’s chief henchman, and his job was to run the rest of the world while Dick ran George Bush. I had my own network of staffers and assistants to help me in this. I had brought Frank Stouffer and Carter Braxton in as part of my team, as Chief of Staff and Communications Director, with Mindy McIlroy Geisinger as my Personal Assistant, and had commandeered Matt Scully as well. Meanwhile, Marty Adrianopolis was now over at the American Renaissance Initiative, and he had funneled some staffers from there to me. These were all people with ties to the moderate side and to me, and not so much to George or Dick or Karl.

The one thing Dick couldn’t do was to bar me from meeting with the President. If Cheney met with Bush, I would manage to meet with him next. I might not be able to get George to see reason on things (he really was stupid, with a very simplistic view of the world) but sometimes I could tone down his actions or delay them. For instance, almost immediately after taking office George Bush began talking about a ten percent cut in all taxes across the board, and this was just to be the start of a multi-year effort to drastically cut taxes. Almost immediately this was told to Grover Norquist, who began promoting it heavily in Congress. Treasury, the Office of Management and Budget, and I were aghast at what this would do to revenues and the deficit! The best we could come up with was to limit the reduction in the first year to a five percent cut.

It became very clear the dangers we were facing at our first meeting of the National Security Council in early February. By law this is supposed to be the most senior cabinet members and other critical people, a ‘mini-cabinet’ to contemplate war and peace. Besides the President and the Vice President, you had the Secretaries of State, Defense, and Treasury, the National Security Adviser, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the head of the CIA. Along with these mandatory members, you also had ‘invited’ members who almost always showed up, like the President’s Chief of Staff and the Attorney General.

One of the biggest changes in American politics became obvious at the Cabinet level, and that was the utter decline of the value of being a military veteran. A generation before, most of the male members of the Cabinet and virtually all of the National Security Council would have seen some form of military service, even if it had only been running the motor pool at Fort Dix. Now it was almost unheard of. In the entire cabinet, at least from what I could determine, the only veterans were Colin Powell, Tony Principi at Veterans Affairs, and me. Tommy Thompson and George Bush had both been in either the Reserves or the National Guard, and they had worked their asses off to avoid actually having to serve. The National Security Council was just as bad.

That is not to say that these were bad people. Just because you wore a uniform at some point in the past, that didn’t make you some kind of saint or an expert on all matters military. I was a pretty good company level commander and could have probably handled a battalion without too many problems. That did not make me the next Patton! However, it does give you a feeling for what will be required and what should be considered in any discussion of the use of military force.

The meetings of the National Security Council are supposed to be run by the President, with questions being asked of and instructions being given to the other participants. I raised an eyebrow at Colin Powell when as soon as George Bush called the meeting to order he turned it over to the Secretary of State. Dick Cheney opined on the problems we were having with Saddam Hussein and the Iraqis (basically, they weren’t doing what we wanted them to do, which was to turn over Saddam Hussein to us for a nice, clean hanging), and then he turned it over to the head of the Central Intelligence Agency, Paul Wolfowitz.

Wolfowitz then began to recite the issues that we were discovering through our intelligence and surveillance of Iraq. I began taking a few notes. They were routinely thumbing their noses at us and testing the limits of the no-fly zones we had created after the Gulf War. There was an active program to develop a nuclear bomb. They already had chemical weapons. They were hiring Russian scientists to develop biological weapons. They were developing missiles capable of carrying these warheads, not just to Israel, but farther, to Europe. They were in discussions with terrorist groups in Lebanon and North Africa. The bottom line was that we needed to strongly consider some form of stronger response to their aggression.

There was no discussion because Cheney immediately turned the meeting over to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, an Air Force General named Myers, who had replaced Shelton when he had quit during the nonsense with me in the election. General Myers promptly reported that he agreed with everything Director Wolfowitz had said, and that it was imperative that we begin preparing a variety of responses to Iraqi aggression. George Bush, on cue, ordered General Myers to begin developing possible plans.

I cleared my throat, drawing attention to myself. “Excuse me, but I have a few questions.”

Before the President could respond, Cheney said, “Carl, this is only a preliminary investigation into these matters for the sake of the President.”

“Regardless, I still have some questions, and the President might be interested in hearing those answers.” I looked over at George Bush. “Mister President?”

“Go ahead, Carl. Let’s hear some questions and answers,” he replied, amused at my trumping Cheney.

“Thank you, Mister President.” I turned my head to Wolfowitz. “Mister Director, you claim the Iraqis are developing chemical weapons. They already have them. Gulf War Syndrome was a consequence of low-level exposure to them. What has changed to warrant any changes on our part?”

That was the start. I also pushed on details about his other claims. What proof did he have for the nuclear bomb program? Where were the biologicals being developed? Why would an avowed secular dictator like Hussein want to have anything to do with the terrorist groups Hezbollah or Hamas, which were primarily supported by Iraq’s mortal enemy, the Iranians? Wolfowitz blustered ferociously about all the classified information the CIA was developing, none of which, of course, could be given in detail to us. I simply nodded.

Then I turned to General Myers. “General, you must have provided the Director with the information about the attempted violations of the no-fly zone and the other provocations. We’ve been living with that for the last ten years. Is there anything different now than before? We’ve been containing these idiots just fine. Why stop?”

To his credit, General Myers didn’t bluster and fulminate. Still, his responses were that Hussein seemed to be increasing the tempo of his provocations and that we were using a lot of resources to contain him. Worst of all, ever since the Gulf War, some of these guys thought combat was a video game.

I looked over at George Bush and shook my head. “Mister President, I have to tell you that this is very disturbing. I can see no good reason why we should go to war, which is what the Secretary and the Director and the Chairman want. Pardon my French, but Saddam Hussein is an asshole, not a threat, and we simply can’t go around killing assholes just because they are assholes. We will run out of bullets before we run out of assholes!” Cheney looked furious at this, but Condoleeza Rice looked amused. Powell simply looked thoughtful.

Bush nodded and held up a hand to forestall any responses. “Fair enough, Carl.” To Wolfowitz he ordered, “Paul, you need to get a lot more information before we can continue in this direction.”

After that we went on to other topics and areas of the globe. Later, I invited myself into the Oval Office and sat down with President Bush. “George, I won’t deny that I have my differences with some of these guys, but this is more than that. We’re not just talking about money. This isn’t about taxes or deficits or Wall Street. This is about sending young men and women to their deaths. Some of these guys think it’s going to be just like ten years ago, cheap and easy. That was a onetime thing, a once in a thousand-year event. Real war is a lot messier, and it is never quick and easy. I am begging you, go slow on this.”

“Carl, I appreciate your thoughts. It is still too soon to know what we need to do. If I do have to send our troops in, I won’t do it lightly.”

I thanked him and left. I was not reassured. The idea of avenging his father’s ‘defeat’ consumed the man. Realistically, the Saudis would never have allowed us to go to Baghdad and depose Hussein. On the plus side, almost immediately afterwards, I was asked to a meeting with Colin Powell, who basically promised to keep me completely up to date on whatever Cheney and Wolfowitz and Myers were up to. He was as concerned as I was.

A couple of months later we had a similar meeting, but to this one I made an invitation and brought in Richard Clarke, the Counter-Terrorism Adviser to the National Security Adviser. He put together a dog and pony show on what both he and I felt was a much more serious threat, Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. He mentioned Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda specifically, along with several other groups. The only thing that Bush and Cheney wanted to know was the kind of contacts they had with the Iraqis. Clarke gave them a funny look and glanced over at me, then said, “I’m sure the Iraqis are keeping track of them, simply because Al Qaeda wants to kill Saddam Hussein. Other than that, they have no involvement with them.”

“What about the Iranians? Are they working for the Iranians?” asked Wolfowitz.

“Uh, bin Laden is Sunni and the Iranians are Shiites. They wouldn’t be working together. More like they’d be targeting each other.”

Nobody paid him any attention after that. I was astonished that these geniuses didn’t even know the religions of the people they were planning to invade. It didn’t matter to them. We would invade in another lightning campaign, destroying the Iraqi Army in a matter of days, roll into Baghdad, occupy the palace, and capture Hussein. It might take two weeks, tops. The locals, elated after years of oppression under the boot heel of the dictator (I heard that phrase used) would rise up and welcome us with open arms. Within a matter of months there would be free elections and our hand-picked candidates would take over, and in their gratitude, would allow American oil companies first crack at all that Iraqi oil. It might cost us a few hundred billion, but the oil would pay for it. Even better, once all their neighbors saw democracy taking hold, they would all rise up and overthrow their governments, too (Syria, Iran, etc.) It would be the beginning of democracy in the Arab world!

In hindsight this was as big a blunder as Viet Nam had been. The ‘boot heel of the dictator’ was the only thing keeping everybody from killing each other! They rose up and promptly wanted us to get lost while they went about a delightful little civil war. There were no oil revenues, since Hussein hadn’t invested penny one in the infrastructure, so it was falling down around his ears, and everybody thought blowing up their enemy’s wells and refineries was a good idea. Meanwhile we were stuck there about ten years and spent at least $2 trillion on this disaster, while getting tens of thousands of troops killed and maimed. Meanwhile, none of the neighbors rose up, and what revolts did occur during the ‘Arab Spring’ had nothing to do with Iraq. At the same time, we wasted our best shot at stabilizing Afghanistan, and wasted another $2 trillion over there.

The usual response to my bringing up these unpleasant questions was that Cheney would maneuver me out of the country. Not to important places, but there are a lot of rinky-dink shitholes where the Vice Prime Minister dies, and the American Vice President needs to make a formal visit for a state funeral. There are also many facts that need finding in deepest and darkest Africa. As far as I could determine, the most important fact I needed to find was the location of the ‘This way out of Africa’ sign! This usually would tie me up for a week or so, while Cheney and Wolfowitz would undo whatever damage I had done in their campaign to go to war in the Middle East.

It only got worse. We had another meeting in July, where I brought Clarke in again, to discuss the latest intelligence on Al Qaeda. Everything I had been hearing that spring and summer indicated that something was in the works. There was talk of ‘chatter’, emails and cell phone calls from strange people to even stranger people. Something was going to happen. I asked Clarke what he thought it was, and then asked him about various scenarios straight out of Tom Clancy novels. Two days after the July meeting, the counter-terrorism office for the National Security Adviser was eliminated as being duplicative of efforts at CIA. Richard Clarke had been fired.

On the plus side, George Bush was still talking to me and listening, to the extent that he listened to anybody telling him things he didn’t want to hear. He had been cool after Clinton tried to land me in the jackpot with the release of my classified records. After the election, however, I called George and asked for the account number for the third $5 million payoff, and he brightened right up again. I made the last installment the afternoon of the Inauguration. As I told him, my word and my deals meant a lot to me.

Surprisingly, the one area I ended up supporting George was in education. He was pushing his No Child Left Behind Act, a major overhaul of the way schools were funded and graded. This was a massive bill, and it encompassed some major changes. I knew that the bill was not perfect, and that it had any number of flaws in it, but the way America did public education was deeply broken. If the definition of madness was to do the same thing over and over, and to expect a different result, then the way the U.S. did education was madness.

Personally, I thought one of the biggest improvements would be to cut the unions down to size. As it stood, the teachers’ unions had no interest in improving education and only an interest in getting more money for teachers and the unions. They coated it all with a fine layer of sweetness and light. This was one of the big areas where Marilyn and I argued. She had gone through the process, getting a bachelor’s and a master’s in education, and she had bought their bullshit hook, line, and sinker. It was one of those areas we agreed to disagree.

Surprisingly, George used one of our discussions in the major speech he gave to introduce the bill. I had talked to him about breaking the unions and the stranglehold they had on the system.

“We have a system where math teachers can’t do algebra, where English teachers can’t parse a sentence, and where chemistry teachers aren’t qualified to work in a laboratory, but they are teachers because they have a degree in education. Meanwhile, Vice President Buckman, who has a doctorate in applied mathematics, and is qualified to teach half a dozen subjects at the college level, is unqualified to teach in our high schools, because he doesn’t have a degree in education! This is a deeply flawed system.”

To a certain extent this threw me into the fire, which undoubtedly pleased Dick Cheney, but I didn’t care. It was a subject I could speak on and did so on several occasions.

It wasn’t just foreign affairs that had me in hot water with some of the others in the White House. To be fair, a chunk of it was my own fault; I should have known better than to pick a fight. It was my general disdain with the hard-core right wingers running loose. They weren’t all in the government, either. Rush Limbaugh had been running and gunning for me ever since I had begun to make a national name for myself. All through the short list period prior to my selection as Bush’s running mate he had been complaining I wasn’t Republican enough, meaning conservative enough.