Cognitive Dissonance About Iraq
Posted on June 6, 2005
The Washington Post leads today with an article about the increasing disconnect between the worrisome events in Iraq and the giddy optimism maintained by the White House about how the war is going.
While Bush and Vice President Cheney offer optimistic assessments of the situation, a fresh wave of car bombings and other attacks killed 80 U.S. soldiers and more than 700 Iraqis last month alone and prompted Iraqi leaders to appeal to the administration for greater help. Privately, some administration officials have concluded the violence will not subside through this year.
The disconnect between Rose Garden optimism and Baghdad pessimism, according to government officials and independent analysts, stems not only from Bush's focus on tentative signs of long-term progress but also from the shrinking range of policy options available to him if he is wrong. Having set out on a course of trying to stand up a new constitutional, elected government with the security firepower to defend itself, Bush finds himself locked into a strategy that, even if it proves successful, foreshadows many more deadly months to come first, analysts said.
And given the fact that the Army now says that its greatest impediment to recruitment is the opposition by the parents of potential recruits, it looks like parents are choosing to ignore the White House entirely on its assessment of Iraq.
President Bush's portrayal of a wilting insurgency in Iraq at a time of escalating violence and insecurity throughout the country is reviving the debate over the administration's Iraq strategy and the accuracy of its upbeat claims.
Dick Cheney tells us that the insurgency is "in its last throes." Funny how none of the military's top brass are willing to say anything like that.
Military commanders in Iraq privately told a visiting congressional delegation last week that the United States is at least two years away from adequately training a viable Iraqi military but that it is no longer reasonable to consider augmenting U.S. troops already strained by the two-year operation, said Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.). "The idea that the insurgents are on the run and we are about to turn the corner, I did not hear that from anybody," Biden said in an interview.
Meanwhile, only 37% of Americans approve of President Bush's handling of Iraq and the percentage of Americans who don't think the war was worth it is 51% and has been rising with each poll. This cognitive dissonance among voters is going to end sometime, with the public either choosing to believe the White House or to believe the increasingly unpalatable facts about Iraq.