Hagel and Bush's Bay of Pigs Moment
With Senate debate on competing Iraq resolutions set to begin this week, Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel has emerged as the bete noire of President Bush and his remaining Republican allies in Congress. But while his ferocious opposition to the "Alice in Wonderland" surge in Iraq marks him now as a White House foe, back in 2005 Hagel offered Bush some sage advice that should have made him the President's best friend.
The story of Chuck Hagel's wise counsel in June 2005 is one of the many compelling backstories of Bob Woodward 2006 book, State of Denial. Woodward recounts a telling exchange between the Nebraska Senator and the President following the June 21, 2005 Senate Republican lunch at the White House. Worried about the mounting chaos in Iraq and the erosion in the administration's credibility, Hagel pleads with President Bush to reach outside his national security inner circle for new voices bringing fresh perspectives and other options to the table.
President Bush's reaction encapsulates the failure of his Iraq policy and his administration. Valuing loyalty, unity and almost papal obsession with infallibility above all else, Bush is dumb-founded by what is to him an incomprehensible request:
After lunch, Hagel walked out with Bush and they went off to a corner.
"Mr. President," Hagel said, "let me ask you a question. I believe that you are getting really bubbled here in the White House on Iraq. Do you ever reach outside your inner circle of people, outside your national security council?" Then he added the obligatory softening. "This is not a reflection on, in any way, or an assertion of inadequacy. That's not my point here. I think it's important for presidents, especially in a time of war, to get some other opinions - of people that maybe don't agree with you, or you don't agree with. Call them in. Sit them down. Listen to them. Do you ever do that?"
"Well, I kind of leave to that to [National Security Adviser Stephen] Hadley."
"I know that your national security adviser talks to people, but do you talk to people?"
"Well, maybe I should talk to Hadley about that."
"I think this is very important, Mr. President, that you get some outside opinions here. Just to test your theories and how you're doing." Hagel mentioned themes from histories and biographies he had read. "When a nation's at war, the president is under tremendous pressure. You go deeper into that bunker, and I don't think that's good for you."
There, he had said it.
"That's good advice," Bush said.
In a nutshell, Hagel was begging President Bush to be a lot less like himself, and a lot more like another tormented wartime president, John F. Kennedy. Unsurprisingly, Bush would have none of it.
In April 1961, Kennedy was devastated and embarrassed by the Bay of Pigs fiasco, the tragically abortive exile invasion of Castro's Cuba architected by the Eisenhower CIA. Unlike his successor 40 year later, JFK moved quickly to address the two lessons of the disaster.
First, Kennedy took complete responsibility for the calamity, taking to the airwaves the next day for a nationally televised mea culpa. In his April 21 press conference, JFK made it clear that responsibility for the Bay of Pigs was his alone. "There's an old saying that victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan," Kennedy said, adding, "I am the responsible officer of the government."
Second, President Kennedy took immediate steps to shake up the national security team and group-think process that had served him so poorly. Complaining about the CIA and Joint Chiefs, JFK admitted, "I just took their advice." He responded by sacking CIA Director Allen Dulles and two of his deputies. More importantly, Kennedy put in place the Executive Committee (or ExComm) including both current and former cabinet members (among them Republicans) to ensure multiple perspectives and options in times of crisis. Just one year later, Kennedy's out-of-box approach paid rich dividends for him and the nation in the successful resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Sadly, George W. Bush is no Jack Kennedy. The self-proclaimed "war president" could not admit to a single mistake he had made when asked during an April 2004 press conference. In his January 10, 2007 address to the nation, President Bush offered Americans an "unpology" disingenuously stating, "Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me." As for reaching out beyond his core team of Cheney, Rice, Rove and Hadley, President Bush wholly rejected the recommendations of the bipartisan Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group. Instead, Bush ignored Hagel's entreaties and stood firm on his present course, later announcing "I'm the decider, and I decide what is best."
President Bush should have listened to one other nugget of wisdom from President Kennedy. "The essence of ultimate decision remains impenetrable to the observer," Kennedy concluded, "often, indeed, to the decider himself."
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Bush is a megalomaniac and therefore doesn't see the validity of other than supportive views. It is a crime that we are stuck with such a limited
Posted by Alan Coltharp on January 28, 2007 10:24 PMDeciderer. It's like having only Ted Bundy to turn to for relationship advice. Glad I had nothing to do with it.
See the new book "After the Bay of Pigs"
Posted by Alexandria Library on October 13, 2007 4:42 AM