George W. Bush openly mocked the very idea of “nation building” as a presidential candidate in 2002, but after 9/11 and the invasion of Afghanistan, Bush seemed to appreciate the importance of his responsibilities and the task at hand. He was aware of the fact that Afghans had been abandoned by the West before, and the president, in April 2000, vowed to avoid the syndrome of “initial success, followed by long years of floundering and ultimate failure.”
“We’re not going to repeat that mistake,” he said. “We’re tough, we’re determined, we’re relentless.”
At the time, I was cautiously optimistic that he meant it. I thought it was at least possible that the president would see the mission through and, with 9/11 in mind, make a real commitment to Afghanistan. As the New York Times explains today in a gripping retrospective, Bush, through a combination of incompetence, arrogance, neglect, and poor judgment, managed to throw “the good war” badly off course. As the administration’s Iraq policy failed spectacularly, Afghanistan was relegated to an “afterthought.”
At critical moments in the fight for Afghanistan, the Bush administration diverted scarce intelligence and reconstruction resources to Iraq, including elite C.I.A. teams and Special Forces units involved in the search for terrorists. As sophisticated Predator spy planes rolled off assembly lines in the United States, they were shipped to Iraq, undercutting the search for Taliban and terrorist leaders, according to senior military and intelligence officials.
As defense secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld claimed credit for toppling the Taliban with light, fast forces. But in a move that foreshadowed America’s trouble in Iraq, he failed to anticipate the need for more forces after the old government was gone, and blocked an early proposal from Colin L. Powell, then the secretary of state, and Mr. Karzai, the administration’s handpicked president, for a large international force. As the situation deteriorated, Mr. Rumsfeld and other administration officials reversed course and cajoled European allies into sending troops.
When it came to reconstruction, big goals were announced, big projects identified. Yet in the year Mr. Bush promised a “Marshall Plan” for Afghanistan, the country received less assistance per capita than did postconflict Bosnia and Kosovo, or even desperately poor Haiti, according to a RAND Corporation study. Washington has spent an average of $3.4 billion a year reconstructing Afghanistan, less than half of what it has spent in Iraq, according to the Congressional Research Service.
The White House contends that the troop level in Afghanistan was increased when needed and that it now stands at 23,500. But a senior American commander said that even as the military force grew last year, he was surprised to discover that “I could count on the fingers of one or two hands the number of U.S. government agricultural experts” in Afghanistan, where 80 percent of the economy is agricultural. A $300 million project authorized by Congress for small businesses was never financed.
The NYT piece is more a reminder than an eye-opener, but given the attention directed at Bush’s mistakes in Iraq, Bush’s mistakes in Afghanistan are too frequently overlooked. The administration had a rare opportunity to do some real good — Afghans welcomed the U.S. presence, the international community supported our mission, the American electorate had largely rallied behind the cause, and there was reliable intelligence pointing the way towards what needed to be done.
And the Bush gang managed to screw it up anyway.
On May 1, hours before Mr. Bush stood beneath a “Mission Accomplished” banner, Mr. Rumsfeld appeared at a news conference with Mr. Karzai in Kabul’s threadbare 19th-century presidential palace. “We clearly have moved from major combat activity to a period of stability and stabilization and reconstruction activities,” he said. “The bulk of the country today is permissive, it’s secure.”
The Afghanistan announcement was largely lost in the spectacle of Mr. Bush’s speech. But the predictions of stability proved no less detached from events on the ground.
The whole piece is definitely worth reading. Take a look.
