I Cogitate

Bush: 'That's How I Work'
Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Monday, October 29, 2007

In the wake of last month's shooting of 17 civilians by Blackwater gunmen in Baghdad, the Bush administration is finally acknowledging -- more than four years late -- that private security contractors in Iraq should operate under the law.

Last week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice admitted to Congress that the State Department had inadequately supervised those contractors. As Karen DeYoung wrote in Friday's Washington Post, "Pressed to express regret for what Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Md.) called "the failures of your department, your failures," Rice said, "I certainly regret that we did not have the kind of oversight that I would have insisted upon."
 
Rice agreed that "there is a hole" in U.S. law that has prevented prosecution of contractors.

But did we really need an apparent massacre to point out this giant loophole and its perils?

As it happens, President Bush has been aware of the hole for some time -- and deserves some of the blame for not fixing it earlier. Confronted about it in public more than a year ago, Bush literally laughed off the question -- and then, tellingly, described his response as a case study in how he does his job.

The setting was a question-and-answer session after Bush spoke at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies in April of 2006. (Here's a video clip.)

One student, a first-year in South Asia studies, told the president: "My question is in regards to private military contractors. Uniform Code of Military Justice does not apply to these contractors in Iraq. I asked your Secretary of Defense a couple months ago what law governs their actions.

Bush: "I was going to ask him. Go ahead. (Laughter.) Help. (Laughter.)"

Student: "I was hoping your answer might be a little more specific. (Laughter.) Mr. Rumsfeld answered that Iraq has its own domestic laws which he assumed applied to those private military contractors. However, Iraq is clearly not currently capable of enforcing its laws, much less against -- over our American military contractors. I would submit to you that in this case, this is one case that privatization is not a solution. And, Mr. President, how do you propose to bring private military contractors under a system of law?"

Bush: "I appreciate that very much. I wasn't kidding -- (laughter.) I was going to -- I pick up the phone and say, Mr. Secretary, I've got an interesting question. (Laughter.) This is what delegation -- I don't mean to be dodging the question, although it's kind of convenient in this case, but never -- (laughter.) I really will -- I'm going to call the Secretary and say you brought up a very valid question, and what are we doing about it? That's how I work. I'm -- thanks. (Laughter.)"

"...Mr. Bush acknowledged one major failing of the early occupation of Iraq when he said of disbanding the Saddam Hussein-era military, “The policy was to keep the army intact; didn’t happen.”

But when Mr. Draper pointed out that Mr. Bush’s former Iraq administrator, L. Paul Bremer III, had gone ahead and forced the army’s dissolution and then asked Mr. Bush how he reacted to that, Mr. Bush said, “Yeah, I can’t remember, I’m sure I said, ‘This is the policy, what happened?’ ” But, he added, “Again, Hadley’s got notes on all of this stuff,” referring to Stephen J. Hadley, his national security adviser..."

Bremer Provides Letters to 'NYT' To Dispute Bush Claim
Editor & Publisher
September 03, 2007

NEW YORK - In an unexpected turn, former American leader in Iraq, Paul Bremer, has provided letters to The New York Times to counter claims by his former boss, President Bush, carried in a new book (excerpted by the Times last weekend).

Bush in the book says that his plan was to "keep the army intact" in Iraq after the American invasion proved victorious but this "didn't happen." In another quote he suggests that he didn't know about the plan to disband the army or was not happy to hear that his wishes were not carried out.

This move has been cited as one of the most negative of the entire U.S. experience in Iraq.

But the exchange of letters provided by Bremer, the Times reports, "shows that President Bush was told in advance by his top Iraq envoy in May 2003 of a plan to 'dissolve Saddam’s military and intelligence structures.'"

The Times added, "In releasing the letters, Mr. Bremer said he wanted to refute the suggestion in Mr. Bush’s comment that Mr. Bremer had acted to disband the army without the knowledge and concurrence of the White House."

One day after receiving Bremer's May 20 message, Bush wrote back a short thank you to him in Baghdad. “Your leadership is apparent,” the president wrote. “You have quickly made a positive and significant impact. You have my full support and confidence.” On the same day, the Times notes, Bremer had issued the order disbanding the Iraqi military, but "Bush did not mention the order to abolish the military."

The Times added: "Mr. Bremer indicated that he had been smoldering for months as other administration officials had steadily distanced themselves from his order. 'This didn’t just pop out of my head,' he said in a telephone interview on Monday, adding that he had sent a draft of the order to top Pentagon officials and discussed it 'several times' with Donald H. Rumsfeld, then secretary of defense."

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