In my previous article I discussed how US President Harry Truman was advised by Senator Vandenberg to ‘scare the hell out of the country’ in order to get congressional support for the Truman doctrine- the policy that committed the US to fight ‘direct’ and ‘indirect’ communist threats to pro-Western governments around the world.

 

In putting forward his own doctrine, George Bush presented a dark vision of a world divided by terror: “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.”

 

To sell his doctrine to the country, Bush relied on a strategy of fear that distorted the evidence, and ‘fixed the facts to fit the policy’ as was later revealed in the Downing Street Memo.

 

The strategy of fear was consistently applied from the moment Bush decided to go to war against Iraq, and we know from former Bush administration officials that Bush came to office determined to find an excuse to justify his determination to go to war against Iraq.

 

Former Bush speechwriter David Frum said that after the Afghanistan war, he was told, in December 2001, to come up with a justification for war with Iraq, that Bush could use in his State of the Union address in January 2002. (The New Republic, June 30, 03).

 

The Bush administration claimed that Saddam Hussein not only had weapons of mass destruction but also was actively seeking to develop nuclear weapons. Bush claimed in his address to the Congress that Saddam Hussein tried to acquire uranium in Niger for his nuclear weapons program.

 

Even when Washington‘s own envoy to Niger-ambassador Joseph Wilson- concluded that the allegation was baseless, and the UN International Atomic Energy reached the same conclusion, the Bush administration continued to make the false claim. Ambassador Wilson later said that the Bush administration “knew the Niger story was a flat-out lie.”

 

Secretary of State Colin Powell participated in the same strategy of fear when he repeated the same allegations at the UN in February 2003. He would later admit that this was a low point in his career.

 

Again, evidence to the contrary was ignored or dismissed. Thus, Scott Ritter, former chief UN weapons inspectors from 1991 to 1998, stated on several occasions that the weapons inspection regime had eliminated Iraq‘s banned weapons (The Boston Globe, July 20,02). Yet, the Bush White House continued to make ominous allegations about the threat  Iraq allegedly posed to the security of the United States.

 

To support its politics of fear, the Bush administration launched a major propaganda campaign: “The campaign was begun by the White House, which set up a secret panel soon after the Sept. 11 attacks to coordinate information operations by the Pentagon, other government agencies and private contractors.” (NYT, December 10, 05)

 

Pentagon officials set up, in late 2001, a secret unit called The Office of Strategic Influence whose mission it was to conduct “covert disinformation and deception operations — planting false news items in the media and hiding their origins.” (Rolling Stone. November 27, 05).

 

The Bush administration’s politics of fear also included the claim that Iraq had links to al-Qaeda. Speaking in Cincinnati in October 2002, Bush stated: “we’ve learned that Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb making and poisons and gases.”

 

The Bush scare tactics and propaganda were very effective. Even after the Iraq invasion in 2003 and the discrediting of claims about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and Iraqi links to Al Qaeda, a majority of Americans apparently continued to believe the propaganda.

 

This explains why Bush continues even today to invoke the mendacious allegations.

Thus, facing growing isolation and dissent from within his party as evidence of military paralysis in Iraq mounts, Bush tenaciously hangs on to the politics of fear and continues to justify the disastrous war in Iraq in terms of fight against Al Qaeda. 

 

On July 11, he told a press conference that the US must increase its military involvement in Iraq in order to defeat Al Qaeda and other extremists. (NYT, July 12.07)

 

He also continued to link the war in Iraq to the September 11- tragedy. We are fighting in Iraq, he said, the same people “who attacked us in America on September the 11th” (NYT, July 12, 07). Leaving Iraq without defeating Al Qaeda, he later said, would be “dangerous for the world and disastrous for America.” (NYT. Jul 24)

 

Recently the administration claimed that the highest-ranking Iraqi leader of al-Qaida in Iraq was arrested on July 4 and told US interrogators that Al Qaeda in Iraq is directly influenced by Osama bin Laden.

 

In fact, the US military spokesman said that the Iraqi operative who was caught told his interrogators quite the opposite. He said that “al Qaeda-led group in Iraq is just a front and its leader fictitious.” (NYT, July 18,07)

 

The politics of fear was decried by the editors of the New York Times who frustratingly observed that the Bush administration’s message to the American people continues to be “as always: Be very afraid. And don’t question the president.” (July 18.07)

 

But the American people are in fact questioning the president and the Congress. A recent poll showed that “most US voters think the country is on the wrong track and remain deeply unhappy with President George W. Bush and Congress…” (NYT, July 18,07)

 

This finding was recently colorfully illustrated during a Capitol Hill session with US ambassador in Iraq via teleconference. When the connection went silent temporarily, Senator Joseph Biden said into his microphone: “Baghdad, can you hear the U.S. Senate?” A voice from the gallery shouted: Senate, can you hear the American people?” (NYT, July 20, 07)

 

 

Prof. Adel Safty is Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Siberian Academy of Public Administration, Novosibirsk, Russia. He is author of From Camp David to the Gulf, Montreal, New York; and Leadership and Democracy, New York.

 

 

 

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