FAILURE OF THE YEAR 2003
THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION
by Jason Zasky

Two years ago, in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, the American people rallied around President Bush, providing George W. the opportunity to establish his presidential legacy in the wake of that historic crisis. Today, however, it is becoming increasingly clear that Bush has not only squandered that opportunity, but has succeeded in dividing the American people—angering a huge proportion of the population by stubbornly pursuing fiscal and foreign policies that have damaged the country's future economic prospects as well as its relationships with key allies.

Not long after bombs began raining on Baghdad in March of this year, complaints began surfacing that the war in Iraq wasn't going particularly well. There were more casualties than expected and victory would not be achieved as quickly as prognosticators had led the American public to believe. In truth, the combat phase went exceptionally well (despite wholly unrealistic expectations), but this was a war that never should have been fought in the first place. The Bush Administration (and the British government) deliberately overstated the threat posed by Saddam Hussein to justify going to battle.

How did this happen? In the aftermath of September 11, 2001 President Bush vowed to hunt down and punish those responsible for the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Naturally, the American people were overwhelmingly in support of retaliation against Al Qaeda and its supporters. But it wasn't long before the President widened the so-called "war on terror" by threatening to pursue every global terror group—as if fighting Al Qaeda weren't complicated and difficult enough. Not content to stop there, Bush proclaimed Saddam Hussein's country a part of the "axis of evil," stating that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction that could conceivably pose a direct threat to the security of the United States.

Bush claimed that between 1999 and 2001 Iraq attempted to buy hundreds of tons of uranium oxide from Niger—supposedly an indicator that Hussein was attempting to build nuclear weapons. However, the Bush Administration conveniently chose to overlook that the supporting intelligence documents were fake, and instead used them as the centerpiece of its argument for attacking Iraq. Tony Blair and the British government also relied, in part, on the same documents to make the case for war to the British people, and the ensuing scandal in England has badly damaged Blair's reputation. Further complicating matters, David Kelly—one of Britain's foremost experts on weapons of mass destruction, who unwittingly undermined Blair's credibility by questioning the quality of the intelligence to the media—committed suicide in July of this year after coming under pressure from the British government. Ultimately, Bush and Blair spent a large portion of 2003 trying to justify their actions to an increasingly suspicious public.

Motivation and justification aside, the invasion of Iraq was clearly ill advised. The decision by Bush and Blair to fight the war without allies was a dangerous gamble, as the lack of international support would leave the U.S. and Britain responsible for Iraq's postwar welfare. In light of this fact, it seems almost incredible that Bush, Vice-President Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld decided to launch the attack without any plan for rebuilding the country.

As expected, reconstruction in Iraq, to date, hasn't been effective. The capture of Saddam Hussein gives Bush a temporary reprieve from criticism, but when the euphoria subsides it will be back to the long hard task of rebuilding. Ironically, shutting out France, Germany, Russia and Canada (countries that did not "support" the invasion) from the chance to bid on reconstruction contracts doesn't give the U.S. the best chance to succeed at stabilizing Iraq—an example of the Bush camp's imperialistic tendencies trumping U.S. national interest.

As we all know, Bush invaded Iraq for reasons of national security. Yet, the war effort may make the United States less secure than ever. Certainly, few Americans would argue against proactively targeting select terrorist groups around the world while committing resources to stabilize countries such as Pakistan and Afghanistan—both of which continue to pose a far greater threat to the United States than Iraq ever did. But since the beginning of the war the Bush Administration has been committing fewer resources to unstable terrorist-friendly nations, even diverting special forces units away from Afghanistan. It seems Bush's focus on Iraq has left the U.S. even more vulnerable to nuclear, biological or chemical attacks on American soil.

Meanwhile, Bush's economic and fiscal policy is equally misguided. The Bush Administration has been quick to trumpet any positive economic news, going out of its way to point out that Bush's tax cuts and economic stimulus package is "working." Yes, there have been some recent modest economic gains. But the employment picture remains bleak, as the new positions being created are mostly in the low-pay service sector and underemployment remains endemic. Even so, there are still at least three million less jobs available now than when Bush took office and American manufacturing jobs continue to disappear at an alarming rate. Workers in white-collar industries report that finding a new job is virtually impossible.

But the really scary part of this story is that the Bush Administration is using every economic stimulus under the sun (tax cuts, dramatically increased federal spending) to try and mask the horrific performance of the economy under its watch. In essence, Bush's economic policy results in short-term gains but at the expense of long-term hardship. Those tax cuts might seem appealing today, but eventually the American people will have to pay the piper for Bush's insistence on spending more and more while taking in less and less.

The numbers are truly astonishing. In 2000 the United States had a $236 billion surplus. In 2004 the national deficit is expected to exceed $500 billion—a $736 billion-plus swing in the wrong direction. Of course, spending billions on Iraq is only exacerbating this problem. Meanwhile, the U.S. trade deficit is now approaching $1.4 billion per day. The next president is going to be left with both record-breaking budget and trade deficits—an unenviable mess that begs the question: Is the U.S. headed for 10 or 20 consecutive years of economic sluggishness, much like Japan has experienced in the last decade or so? Or worse, are we headed for an economic crisis similar to that plaguing Argentina or Brazil?

While the war and the economy are the Bush Administration's most visible and clear-cut failures, there's no shortage of other issues that Americans have a right to complain about. The overriding problem is that the Bush Administration operates like a bull in a china shop—stubbornly pursuing its agenda, regardless of whom it offends and who gets hurt in the process. It is an Administration that only considers short-term consequences and has a remarkable ability to conveniently ignore any information or evidence that doesn't support its agenda. This short-sighted approach threatens to leave the United States with a legacy of financial and foreign policy problems that may weaken the country for decades to come.

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