Failure of Leadership

by Bob Herbert, New York Times Op-Ed writer

[Guest editorial comment: "Herbert's assessment is
"Spot on" as my Australian friends would say to me.
How can anyone still support the tragic Bush
presidency? And what does it tell you about the
people who do?" -- Ray Signer]

Anthony Dixon and Adam Froehlich were best friends who
grew up in the suburbs of southern New Jersey, not far
from Philadelphia. They went to junior high school
together. They wrestled on the same team at Overbrook
High School in the town of Pine Hill. They enlisted in
the Army together in 2002. And both died in Iraq, in
roadside bombings just four months apart.

Specialist Dixon was killed on Sunday in Samarra.
Specialist Froehlich was killed in March near Baquba.
They were 20 years old.

No one has a clue how this madness will end. As G.I.'s
continue to fight and die in Iraq, the national
leaders who put them needlessly in harm's way are now
flashing orange alert signals to convey that Al Qaeda
- the enemy that should have been in our sights all
along - is poised to strike us again.

It's as if the government were following a script from
the theater of the absurd. Instead of rallying our
allies to a coordinated and relentless campaign
against Al Qaeda after Sept. 11, we insulted the
allies, gave them the back of our hand and arrogantly
sent the bulk of our forces into the sand trap of
Iraq.

Now we're in a fix.

The war in Iraq has intensified the hatred of America
around the world and powerfully energized Al
Qaeda-type insurgencies. At the same time, it has
weakened our defenses by diverting the very resources
we need - personnel, matériel and boatloads of cash -
to meet the real terror threats.

President Bush's re-election mantra is that he's the
leader who can keep America safe. But that message was
stepped on by the urgent, if not frantic, disclosures
this week by top administration officials that another
Al Qaeda attack on the United States might be
imminent.

A debate emerged almost immediately about whether the
intelligence on which those disclosures were based was
old or new, or a combination of both. Nevertheless,
because of the growing sense of alarm, there was an
expansion of the already ubiquitous armed,
concrete-fortified sites in New York City and
Washington.

The pressure may be getting to Mr. Bush. He came up
with a gem of a Freudian slip yesterday. At a signing
ceremony for a $417 billion military spending bill,
the president said: "Our enemies are innovative and
resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking
about new ways to harm our country and our people, and
neither do we."

The nation seems paralyzed, unsure of what to do about
Iraq or terrorism. The failure of leadership that led
to the bonehead decision to invade Iraq remains
painfully evident today. Nobody seems to know where we
go from here.

What Americans need more than anything else right now
is some honest information about the critical
situations we're facing.

What's the military mission in Iraq? Can it be clearly
defined? Is it achievable? At what cost and over what
time frame? How many troops will be needed? How many
casualties are we willing to accept? And how much
suffering are we willing to endure here at home in
terms of the domestic needs that are unmet?

Neither Lyndon Johnson nor Richard Nixon was honest
with the American people about Vietnam, and the result
was a monumental tragedy. George W. Bush has not
leveled with the nation about Iraq, and we are again
trapped in a long, tragic nightmare.

As for the so-called war on terror, there is no
evidence yet that the administration has a viable plan
for counteracting Al Qaeda and its America-hating
allies, offshoots and imitators. Whether this week's
clumsy sequence of press conferences, leaks and alerts
was politically motivated or not, the threat to the
U.S. is both real and grave. And it can't be thwarted
with military power alone.

Does the administration have any real sense of what
motivates the nation's enemies? Does it understand the
ways in which American policies are empowering its
enemies? Does it grasp the crucial importance of
international alliances and coordinated intelligence
activity in fighting terror? And is it even beginning
to think seriously about lessening our debilitating
dependence on Middle Eastern oil?

The United States is the greatest military and
economic power in the history of the planet. But it
lacks a unifying sense of national purpose at the
moment, and seems uncertain, even timid, as the
national security challenges continue to mount. That
is what a failure of leadership can do to a great
power.

[Thanks to Ray Signer, Dominick Di Noto, and others
who forwarded this article.]