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The Price of Arrogance
In a war that could go on for decades, you cannot simply detain people
indefinitely on the sole authority of the secretary of Defense

By Fareed Zakaria
Newsweek

May 17 issue - America is ushering in a new responsibility era," says
President Bush as part of his standard stump speech, "where each of us
understands we're responsible for the decisions we make in life." When
speaking about bad CEOs he's even clearer as to what it entails: "You're
beginning to see the consequences of people making irresponsible decisions.
They need to pay a price for their irresponsibility."

"I take full responsibility," said Donald Rumsfeld in his congressional
testimony last week. But what does this mean? Secretary Rumsfeld hastened
to add that he did not plan to resign and was not going to ask anyone else
who might have been "responsible" to resign. As far as I can tell, taking
responsibility these days means nothing more than saying the magic words "I
take responsibility."

After the greatest terrorist attack against America, no one was asked to
resign, and the White House didn't even want to launch a serious
investigation into it. The 9/11 Commission was created after months of
refusals because some of the victims' families pursued it aggressively and
simply didn't give up. After the fiasco over Iraqi weapons of mass
destruction, not one person was even reassigned. The only people who have
been fired or cashiered in this administration are men like Gen. Eric
Shinseki, Paul O'Neill and Larry Lindsey, who spoke inconvenient truths.

Rumsfeld went on in his testimony to explain that "these terrible acts were
perpetrated by a small number." That's correct, except the small number who
are truly responsible are not the handful of uniformed personnel currently
being charged for the prison abuse scandal. The events at Abu Ghraib are
part of a larger breakdown in American policy over the past two years. And
it has been perpetrated by a small number of people at the highest levels
of government.

Since 9/11, a handful of officials at the top of the Defense Department and
the vice president's office have commandeered American foreign and defense
policy. In the name of fighting terror they have systematically weakened
the traditional restraints that have made this country respected around the
world. Alliances, international institutions, norms and ethical conventions
have all been deemed expensive indulgences at a time of crisis.

Within weeks after September 11, senior officials at the Pentagon and the
White House began the drive to maximize American freedom of action. They
attacked specifically the Geneva Conventions, which govern behavior during
wartime. Donald Rumsfeld explained that the conventions did not apply to
today's "set of facts." He and his top aides have tried persistently to
keep prisoners out of the reach of either American courts or international
law, presumably so that they can be handled without those pettifogging
rules as barriers. Rumsfeld initially fought both the uniformed military
and Colin Powell, who urged that prisoners in Guantanamo be accorded rights
under the conventions. Eventually he gave in on the matter but continued to
suggest that the protocols were antiquated. Last week he said again that
the Geneva Conventions did not "precisely apply" and were simply basic
rules.

The conventions are not exactly optional. They are the law of the land,
signed by the president and ratified by Congress. Rumsfeld's concern—that
Al Qaeda members do not wear uniforms and are thus "unlawful combatants"—is
understandable, but that is a determination that a military court would
have to make. In a war that could go on for decades, you cannot simply
arrest and detain people indefinitely on the say-so of the secretary of
Defense.

The basic attitude taken by Rumsfeld, Cheney and their top aides has been
"We're at war; all these niceties will have to wait." As a result, we have
waged pre-emptive war unilaterally, spurned international cooperation,
rejected United Nations participation, humiliated allies, discounted the
need for local support in Iraq and incurred massive costs in blood and
treasure. If the world is not to be trusted in these dangerous times, key
agencies of the American government, like the State Department, are to be
trusted even less. Congress is barely informed, even on issues on which its
"advise and consent" are constitutionally mandated.

Leave process aside: the results are plain. On almost every issue involving
postwar Iraq—troop strength, international support, the credibility of
exiles, de-Baathification, handling Ayatollah Ali Sistani—Washington's
assumptions and policies have been wrong. By now most have been reversed,
often too late to have much effect. This strange combination of arrogance
and incompetence has not only destroyed the hopes for a new Iraq. It has
had the much broader effect of turning the United States into an
international outlaw in the eyes of much of the world.

Whether he wins or loses in November, George W. Bush's legacy is now clear:
the creation of a poisonous atmosphere of anti-Americanism around the
globe. I'm sure he takes full responsibility.

© 2004 Newsweek, Inc.