With the first anniversary of the start of the Iraq war this week, the White House is all set to make a spectacle of it, much the same way they made political hay with the September 11 anniversary:
The White House will mark this Friday’s first anniversary of the invasion of Iraq with a week-long media blitz arguing that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein was essential to combating global terrorism and making the United States safer.
The message is crucial to President Bush’s reelection campaign, which has tried to shift the focus of the race from troublesome issues such as the economy to his biggest strength in polls — his handling of the aftermath of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
… Jim Wilkinson, deputy national security adviser, said the administration’s main message for the week is that the nation is “more secure” because of the capture of Hussein.
“More secure” is definitely an exercise in relativity. We are only more secure in the sense that someday long in the future, one of Saddam’s sons might have finally managed to get a missile or weapon that could reach us. But frankly, I feel far less secure now because of the turmoil that has been unleashed and the hatred that Bush’s actions has incited toward us. Not that they liked us before, but it seems that now there are so many more reasons for unbalanced people to become martyrs by attacking us.
Rand Beers, a former high-level Bush national security official who left the administration and joined Kerry’s campaign as his adviser on national and homeland security, said the White House is trying to use images from the week to “paint the picture that they want to be seen rather than allowing others to describe the more dismal reality.”
For those of you programming your VCRs, here’s the schedule of festivities:
The war-week events began Friday with a town hall meeting by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld with Pentagon employees.
Three members of Bush’s war cabinet are on talk shows today. On Monday, the National Security Council and Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham will hold a show-and-tell in Oak Ridge, Tenn., of centrifuge parts and other gear that Libya surrendered after agreeing to halt its nuclear-weapons program.
A huge ship bearing the rest of the equipment from Libya’s nuclear program will dock on the East Coast as soon as late this week.
On Tuesday, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Rumsfeld and other administration officials will give interviews to radio stations around the country from the Pentagon.
On Wednesday, two U.S. government television stations beaming into the Middle East will mark the anniversary of the 1988 gassing of Kurds in Halabja, in northern Iraq, that killed an estimated 5,000 people. The administration points to this episode as proof that Hussein once had weapons of mass destruction and used them.
Also Wednesday, the Republican-controlled House is scheduled to hold four hours of debate and vote on a resolution that says the world is better off without Hussein in power. It does not mention Bush or weapons of mass destruction, except in connection with the Kurdish attack.
Bush will speak Thursday at Fort Campbell, Ky. He and first lady Laura Bush will eat lunch with troops.
And on Friday, the president and the first lady will pay their third visit in six months to wounded soldiers at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Bush also will give a major speech in the East Room to ambassadors from countries that were members of the U.S.-led coalitions that attacked Afghanistan and Iraq.
