Excerpt
Peter Baker: "Overlaying (the whole mix of possible reasons Bush-Cheney waged war on Iraq) is what it felt like in that moment. They were operating in an atmosphere of fear and anger and uncertainty. They were seeing these threat reports every day -- including episodes we didn’t even know about, like the botulism scare. When they come into office, they had thought, at the time, that Iraq was a top threat. Then once 9/11 happens it sort of removes all constraints that they might have had prior to that in their interest and inclination to use force. There’s a quote in the book from a senior administration official who was really involved in the decision to invade Iraq and who regrets it now who says we went into Iraq because Afghanistan was so easy. We needed someone harder to beat; 9/11 felt like such a signal event that it required action and response beyond simply toppling the Taliban.
Ezra Klein: That quote is amazing. But it sounds like he also doesn’t know why they went into Iraq. And he was there! That’s less an explanation of the policy than of the psychology. And that’s something the book details really well. I think people can remember what it felt like to be scared after 9/11. But the amount of fear there is in the White House and the degree to which fear of a worse attack drives the decisions after 9/11 -- it’s a really psychologically unusual administration.
Peter Baker: That’s absolutely right. Every day they receive a briefing telling them 100 ways bad guys around the world are trying to kill Americans, Some are real, and some are fanciful. But in that moment the intelligence agencies, having missed the dots on 9/11, begin throwing everything they have at the White House.
Peter Baker is a White House correspondent for the New York Times and author of the excellent "Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House". We spoke on Wednesday, and a lightly edited transcript of our conversation follows.
(Chip Somodevilla — Getty Images)
Ezra Klein: When the George W. Bush administration ended, a lot of people were really eager to move on. There was even this whole presidential campaign about “change.” So why did you decide to dive deep back into those years?
Peter Baker: I’m a masochist, basically. I think reporters get 10 or 20 percent of what’s going on at any given time. It’s a fraction of what really goes on. To go back and reexamine and re-interview, to talk to people who can be more candid now, let’s us learn more about what really went on. It produces surprises. In this case, the surprise was how dramatically this unique partnership in American history changed and evolved over time.
EK: Reading the book, it felt like Dick Cheney was the main character of the first half and George W. Bush was the main character of the second half. In those early years, Bush may be the decider, but Cheney really seems to be setting up the administration, driving the agenda and providing the core philosophy. Did you intend to write it that way?
PB: No, I think the book follows the reporting in that sense. Cheney is so much more of a force in the first term. Bush really comes into his own later in the presidency. He becomes more comfortable in his own skin, more grounded in his judgment, more seasoned. He’s dealt with so many world crises and other leaders by that point. He no longer feels like he needs a guy like Cheney as much as he did in the first term, and he begins setting a different direction that alienates and aggravates Cheney. People like Karen Hughes help him get his presidency a little more in the direction he meant it to go in the first place before it got hijacked by 9/11 and Iraq.
EK: But it wasn’t hijacked by Iraq. The Bush administration chose that war. And, to be honest, that’s what I read the book to understand. I’ve never felt like I understood the reason the Bush administration decided to go to war in Iraq. Once that decision was made, I feel like I can track the arguments for and against it. But the fundamental choice to make that the project is a mystery to me. Now that you’ve written the book, do you feel like you understand it?
PB: I have a better understanding, but I think it’s one of these questions that will be revisited and re-debated for decades to come. My guess is 20 years ago we’ll still be seeing more books on that question. It is the essence of this presidency: Why go to war in Iraq? Some mention Bush’s father. Some mention Cheney’s sense of unfinished business in the Gulf War. There’s the false intelligence.
And overlaying all that is what it felt like in that moment. They were operating in an atmosphere of fear and anger and uncertainty. They were seeing these threat reports every day -- including episodes we didn’t even know about, like the botulism scare. When they come into office, they had thought, at the time, that Iraq was a top threat. Then once 9/11 happens it sort of removes all constraints that they might have had prior to that in their interest and inclination to use force. There’s a quote in the book from a senior administration official who was really involved in the decision to invade Iraq and who regrets it now who says we went into Iraq because Afghanistan was so easy. We needed someone harder to beat; 9/11 felt like such a signal event that it required action and response beyond simply toppling the Taliban.
EK: That quote is amazing. But it sounds like he also doesn’t know why they went into Iraq. And he was there! That’s less an explanation of the policy than of the psychology. And that’s something the book details really well. I think people can remember what it felt like to be scared after 9/11. But the amount of fear there is in the White House and the degree to which fear of a worse attack drives the decisions after 9/11 -- it’s a really psychologically unusual administration.
PB: That’s absolutely right. Every day they receive a briefing telling them 100 ways bad guys around the world are trying to kill Americans, Some are real, and some are fanciful. But in that moment the intelligence agencies, having missed the dots on 9/11, begin throwing everything they have at the White House.
Cheney has this history in continuity-of-government issues. He has for years contemplated the notion of an apocalyptic attack on the United States -- 9/11 convinces him his fears are real. Nineteen guys with box cutters, to him, are only a scratch on the surface compared to what could have happened. And that makes a lot of things seem more reasonable. Eventually, Frances Townsend becomes head of the Department of Homeland Security and begins taking some of these threats out of the briefings because she felt it was so skewed towards danger and it was warping everyone’s mindset to be so exposed to every piece of raw data like that.
EK: One of the really interesting threads in the book is the way Cheney wields power. I think it’s fair to say he’s one of the most talented executive branch staffers of his generation. He’s chief of staff in a White House at a young age. He served across many presidents at top positions. And so with Bush, he runs the transition and manages to really stock the bureaucracy with allies in key spots. His approach to influencing, it seems, isn’t so much whispering into Bush’s ear but having control or at least a lot of influence over the way decisions are framed by the time they get to Bush’s desk. Agreeing with Cheney’s agenda ends up looking like the only logical thing to do.
PB: There’s no question that he understood how power worked. It’s not just the guy who’s loudest at the table. His power emerged from the ability to sprinkle key people throughout, to make himself indispensable to a president who didn’t have much national security experience. And some of his power comes from being able to subordinate himself and be deferential to Bush in ways others can’t. He comes in with no aspirations to be president, and that takes away the friction that often exists between presidents and vice presidents.
That quiet, deferential approach actually enhanced his power in the White House. He spoke so rarely in meetings that a lot of staffers didn’t even know what his position was. He was a black box to them. But he was there when they left, talking to Bush. So staffers often didn't even know if Cheney had won or lost on an issue, and they couldn't rebut him because they didn't know what he was saying.
The rest of this interview is at http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/11/07/why-did-we-go-to-war-in-iraq-an-interview-with-peter-baker/?wpisrc=nl_wnkpm
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