A new book by Robert Draper has been receiving considerable praise for throwing new light on the record of America’s mistaken march to war against Iraq under President George W. Bush. To Start a War draws on newly declassified documents, interviews, and other sources to show the consequences of flawed decision-making by leaders in Washington.
Draper does a splendid job revealing how President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and others acted on feelings rather than facts. Draper’s story begins with an examination of the ideas and actions of the deputy Defense chief, Paul Wolfowitz. He had long been advocating military action against Saddam Hussein’s government. Wolfowitz circulated unsubstantiated documents from highly questionable sources. Other neoconservatives in the Bush administration acted in related ways. They created rationales for war based on shoddy evidence. In many cases, they made judgments about what needed to be done, and then they searched for information that supported the opinion.
Draper’s book, like other important studies of the Bush administration’s decision-making on Iraq, asks why the richest and most powerful nation stumbled foolishly into an unnecessary and costly war. But there another question about America’s action in Iraq that gets much less attention in publications about the U.S.-Iraq conflict. Why did the American people accept the flimsy arguments for military action? If the public had objected strenuously, the Bush administration would not have been able to take the nation to war. Some Americans did challenge the administration’s case, of course. But the White House had plenty of public support when it mobilized for war.
To Start a War shows why top officials in Washington thought America needed to invade and occupy Iraq. Now we need a book that explains how politicians, journalists, and television commentators persuaded the American public to endorse that controversial military intervention. Perhaps that investigation could be called To Sell a War.
