Posted on: Monday, May 5, 2003

EDITORIAL
In war's aftermath, Case rethinks support

Freshman Congressman Ed Case is finding out about the great persuasiveness of the White House's massive intelligence capabilities.

It's the same lesson that Sen. William Fulbright described from the beginning of the American escalation of the war in Vietnam, four decades earlier.

The White House is at the apex of a massive information-gathering establishment. When a president announces that North Vietnamese ships attacked U.S. Navy vessels in the Gulf of Tonkin — or that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction constituted a direct threat to the United States — it is extremely hard for a member of Congress to do anything but swallow his or her doubts and vote "yes."

Fulbright voted for the 1964 Tonkin Gulf resolution, but later became a leading critic of the war. In much the same way, Case was prepared to defend the U.S. invasion of Iraq because of the Bush administration's powerful argument that Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat.

"I decided to believe my government," Case says. But now, as weeks go by without evidence of any such weapons, Case has his doubts.

Last week the New York Times quoted a "senior administration official" as saying it's unlikely any real chemical or biological weapons will ever be found in Iraq because Saddam "couldn't put them together as long as the inspections were going on."

Surveys indicate that millions of Americans continue to believe Bush's reasoning on the war. In his remarks on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln Thursday, Bush continued to link Iraq to al-Qaida, the terrorist network blamed for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, even while the administration acknowledges it has no direct evidence of Iraqi involvement in those attacks.

The rest of Hawai'i's congressional delegation had doubts about Bush's case for war from the start. With more experience in Washington, Rep. Neil Abercrombie and Sens. Daniel Akaka and Dan Inouye understood the ease with which the White House can use of its powerful intelligence capabilities to advance a political argument.

Now Case says the United States should withdraw from Iraq as soon as order is restored. Any long-term U.S. military presence, he says, would fuel speculation that the American purpose is occupation, not liberation.

Has Case been misled on this point, too? "The transition from dictatorship to democracy will take time, but it is worth every effort," Bush said aboard the Lincoln. "Our coalition will stay until our work is done."

The only previous examples where democratic transition was successfully imposed required occupation — of Germany for four years; Japan, seven. And we've maintained substantial military bases in both countries ever since.