Bush Errs on Iraq Facts

The late, great New York Senator, D. Patrick Moynihan, once said, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion. He is not entitled to his own facts.” It would appear that someone in the White House has decided that there is a special category of facts that only the president uses. To the rest of the world, these are mere fantasies. However, the political consequences of the Iraqi statistical errors Mr. Bush made over the week-end could be to derail the presidential debate later this week.

On Saturday, Mr. Bush painted a very rosy picture of Iraq’s present situation. According to the president, almost 100,000 "fully trained and equipped" Iraqi security personnel are in place and another 25,000 will join them by year end. He claimed that “United Nations electoral advisers are on the ground in Iraq." And he promised that almost $9 billion in aid would be spent by the end of this year on fixing up Iraq.

Starting with the last point, Mr. Bush could well be right about this. However, of the $18 billion in aid appropriate thus far, his administration has spent less than $2 billion in the last year and a half. The election commission for Iraq has had $232 million ear-marked for the balloting scheduled in January. Only $7 million has been dispersed. The money that hasn’t been spent represents a gross failure to rebuild Iraq and give it the shot at democracy the administration has sacrificed over 1,000 troops to gain.

As for the UN electoral advisers, there are only 30-35 UN personnel in Iraq all told. At most, Reuters estimates that 8 are engaged in electoral activity. That might be enough to run an election in Crawford, Texas, but Iraq is a bit bigger and more complicated. It is like claiming the Allawi government runs Iraq while there are no go zones for American troops, who are the mainstay of Mr. Allawi’s government.

And finally, there aren’t 100,000 “fully trained and equipped” Iraqi security personnel. The Pentagon has said there are 90,000 police recruits, of whom 8,169 have passed the 8-week academy training program. Six army battalions have had “initial training,” 57 National Guard battalions are awaiting equipment or still being recruited, and 8 of the Guards battalions (around 900 men each) have “initial capability” to fight.

Mr. Bush will face Mr. Kerry Thursday in the first of three joint press conferences (intellectual integrity refuses to allow these to be labeled debates), and the bickering over facts are likely to highlight the evening. Addressing the issues requires an agreement on what the facts are – the event promises much heat, and no light.


© Copyright 2004 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.


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