Right Hook

Conservatives attack Paul O'Neill's "overblown" revelations about the Bush-Cheney war plan. Plus: Norquist hammers Bush for the huge budget deficit; Buchanan greets the president's immigration plan by calling for "Operation Wetback."

By Mark Follman

Jan 14, 2004 | This week war hawks and Bush supporters have jumped all over former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill's allegations that the Bush-Cheney White House started planning the invasion of Iraq the week it took control of office -- long before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks transformed U.S. foreign policy. In some respects, O'Neill's claims aren't big news; it's widely understood that throughout the 1990s key members of President Bush's administration were eager to depose Saddam Hussein, unilaterally if need be. But O'Neill's critics can't seem to settle on whether he's a smart but out-of-touch policymaker or simply a disgruntled former employee out for revenge.

Libertarian Republican blogger Daniel Drezner, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Chicago and a former international economist for the U.S. Treasury Department, says O'Neill may be somewhat off the reservation with his allegations but they still have "the ring of truth."

"Paul O'Neill is a smart guy, but do bear in mind that he was a pretty lousy Treasury secretary when he was in charge. The day he left, I wrote the following:

"O'Neill's fundamental strengths were his intelligence and his willingness to say what he thought even if it roiled markets and politicians. His fatal flaw was that he knew he was intelligent, and therefore never considered the possibility that he could be wrong...

"My point is not to claim that all of O'Neill's criticisms can be dismissed in a single stroke. He's clearly a smart person, and no doubt some of his criticisms have the ring of truth. My point is to remind people that O'Neill brings some baggage that he brings to the table -- and that even smart people can let that baggage overwhelm them...

"[O'Neill's] revelations sound sexy, but they're pretty overblown... In early 2001, peacekeeping troops, war crimes tribunals, and even divvying up Iraq's oil wealth were not merely under discussion by neocons that might have wanted to invade Iraq, but by policy wonks across the board. At the time, the Washington consensus about the Iraq policy was that the status quo was an untenable situation..."

Drezner backs up his argument with firsthand experience:

"A lot of meetings were being held about ways to rejigger U.S. policy ... as a sanctions expert, I participated in one such bipartisan meeting chaired by Richard Haass [former advisor to Secretary of State Colin Powell] in the early days of the transition..."

But oddly, Drezner then turns completely against O'Neill:

"The larger point is that Haass and [Colin] Powell [who were working to ease sanctions against Iraq early in the Bush administration] had the upper hand on Iraq policy -- until September 11th. Clearly, after 9/11, Bush changed his mind. But to claim that George W. Bush planned to invade Iraq from day one of his administration is utter horses&$t."

Responding to Drezner's post, one anonymous blogger laughs off O'Neill's claims, adding that the former treasury secretary's evidence of an early Iraq invasion plan inside the Bush White House doesn't hold up.

"'Ideology and electoral politics' dominating the White House policy process? Shocking! I've always found that 'ideology' is a code word for 'ideas that one doesn't agree with.' The other side in a debate is always mired in ideology, while one's own P.O.V. is always based entirely on -- what was O'Neill's felicitous phrase? -- careful reasoning based on the facts (I'm paraphrasing here)...

"O'Neill's claims ... really collapse when you examine that Iraqi oil document waved by Suskind in the '60 Minutes' interview. It's part of a series of energy-policy documents analyzing oil reserves throughout the Middle East, including the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. Are Suskind/O'Neill claiming that Bush planned to attack them as well?"

(That blogger's comment has a link to the right-wing "Power Line" blog, which in turn points to an analysis of the "energy-policy documents" in question by the American Enterprise Institute's Laurie Mylroie. For her part, Mylroie was an ardent supporter of the Iraq invasion and long promoted the theory -- yet to be proved -- that Saddam Hussein had a hand in the 9/11 attacks.)

Yet, O'Neill sounded oddly naive this week when he expressed surprise that the well-oiled Bush political attack machine would come after him once he went public with his allegations. Dallas-based conservative Bruce Bartlett, a former Treasury Department official and policy analyst during the Reagan and George H. Bush administrations, did exactly that, pummeling O'Neill's track record and demeanor.

"Mr. O'Neill would have us believe that he was the only honest man in an administration of sycophants. Another interpretation would be that he was simply ill-suited to the job he had been given, too used to being the boss and incapable of taking direction, too interested in doing things his own way instead of the way his boss wanted them done, and too easily led to believe that outspokenness is the same thing as honesty.

"Even without the details made public in this book, we know that Paul O'Neill was not a very effective Treasury secretary. Looking through my files I find headlines like these from his tenure:

'All Thumbs at Treasury,' Washington Post (5-20-01)
'Mr. O'Neill's Gaffes,' Washington Post (8-1-02)
'Treasury Secretary Gets Into Hot Water on U.S. Cuba Policy,' Wall Street Journal (3-15-02)
'O'Neill Solidifies Maverick Status With Public Jabs at Bush Policies,' Wall Street Journal (3-18-02)

"On Oct. 2, 2001, the New York Times had this to say: "Mr. O'Neill's erratic statements have sometimes rattled investors and marginalized him as a policymaker and spokesman."

Perhaps the headlines don't tell the whole story, but Bartlett hopes to let that single line from the Times sum up O'Neill's tenure:

"You get the idea. Yet O'Neill never improved. He continued to go out of his way to be out of step with the Bush Administration, both substantively and stylistically, right up until the end. The only question is why he wasn't fired sooner.

"Mr. O'Neill may think he is getting revenge on a president he believes treated him shabbily. But I think that all he has really done is remind people of why he never should have been named Treasury secretary in the first place."

It's still the economy, stupid
In addition to his allegations about Iraq, Paul O'Neill blasted the Bush administration this week for its fiscal hubris. Not only did President Bush cave in to the "corporate crowd" when it came to fighting white-collar crime, he said, Vice President Dick Cheney shot down O'Neill's warnings in November 2002 about the perils of big deficit spending. O'Neill said Cheney told him, "Reagan proved deficits don't matter." O'Neill was ousted from the administration a month later.

While the flat-footed U.S. economy probably isn't in bad enough shape at this point to do real harm to Bush's reelection campaign (financial luminaries including Alan Greenspan have warned that over the long term soaring budget deficits can doom an economic expansion), it is precisely the administration's exploding deficit that's causing deep displeasure among some of Bush's ostensible supporters. Brian M. Riedl, a budget analyst at the Heritage Foundation, says Republicans have resorted to cynical politics:

"At this point, I think that conservatives sold out their small government philosophy and replaced it with a philosophy of whatever will get them re-elected. Neither party is committed to smaller government and less spending. Those who are still standing for fiscal conservatism are frustrated. [We're] searching for ways to stop the spending spree [in Washington]."

Next Page: "Bush is worse than any president since Johnson on spending"

• View blog reactions