Bush rolls out his new, improved get-Saddam line

After weeks of fumbling and GOP infighting, the president takes his case to the U.N.

By Eric Boehlert

Sep 12, 2002 | With world leaders awaiting a clear justification for an invasion of Iraq, President Bush will go to the United Nations Thursday morning to make a speech that could prove pivotal to history. White House officials must be hoping that, after eight months of shifting and often confusing signals, they can get their message right.

Though lauded for its discipline and ability to stay on message and control the public debate, the Bush administration has done a surprisingly poor job of persuading the public, mainstream pundits, Congress and foreign allies of the need to confront Hussein. With too many messengers reading different, and sometimes contradictory, scripts, the administration has often undermined its own credibility.

Bush will try to fix that problem at the U.N., speaking directly to the international community, and detailing what one administration official called Hussein's "decade of defiance." He is expected to challenge the U.N. community to take significant action to bring Hussein back in line, or to step aside and let the United States do it. The question is: Will the president's high-profile address be enough to begin restoring the public relations damage done in recent weeks?

It's not clear whether the White House communications breakdown reflects the departure of Karen Hughes, Bush's longtime confidant and media advisor who left in July, or whether the administration chose, for strategic reasons, to send out mixed messages. But White House officials must be aware that they have created more confusion than clarity with their recent missteps:

• Addressing a group of veterans late last month and echoing the administration war hawks, Vice President Dick Cheney insisted that sending weapons inspectors back to Iraq would be a waste of time. They "would provide no assurance whatsoever of his compliance with U.N. resolutions," Cheney said. He was quickly contradicted by Secretary of State Colin Powell, who told the BBC the administration would seek the return of U.N. weapons inspectors. Moving forward, that now seems to be a central plank in the administration's policy.
• In late August, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld insisted that al-Qaida terrorists were operating inside Iraq with Hussein's blessing. Today, the administration has essentially dropped that as a pretext for the war, simply because it cannot be proven. "They are no longer relating it to al-Qaida," reported Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien after meeting with Bush.
• Last week Rumsfeld submitted a 2,300-word Op-Ed piece to the Washington Post, making the case for a preemptive military strike against Iraq, only to withdraw it at the 11th hour because "the timing wasn't right," according to Rumsfeld's spokesperson.
• On Friday, Bush cited a satellite photograph showing suspicious construction inside Iraq as evidence that Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction, and a report by the U.N. atomic energy agency that suggested Hussein was just months away from obtaining nuclear weapons. "I don't know what more evidence we need," said Bush. The next day, NBC News reported Bush had misspoken about what the satellite photograph showed; the U.N. agency insisted Bush had misrepresented its findings.
• Wednesday's New York Times reported that despite the administration's repeated dire warnings about Hussein's arsenal, senior intelligence officials have yet to prepare a definitive, cross-agency assessment of Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons capabilities.

Nonetheless, senior White House aides insist everything is going according to script. And that even though the war message appeared to be in disarray over the summer, they were determined to wait until after the Labor Day weekend to launch, or market, their war. "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August." That's what Andrew Card, the White House chief of staff, told the New York Times last week, in a quote that quickly gained infamy for its brazenness. (ABC News' must-read Beltway blog dubbed Card's quote "completely priceless.")

For now, the White House's idea of a meticulously planned media campaign seems to consist of simply ratcheting up the war rhetoric, which Cabinet members did last Sunday on the television talk shows, apparently hoping to capitalize on the high emotions surrounding the Sept. 11 anniversary memorials.

On CNN, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice spoke gravely about the specter of Hussein unleashing "a mushroom cloud," while Rumsfeld told CBS's "Face the Nation" that Hussein might soon attack America and kill "tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children."

The administration seems to have set extraordinarily low thresholds for success. After spending a combined 30 minutes last Friday on the phone with leaders of China, Russia and France, one White House aide told the New York Times that while none of the leaders were any closer to supporting a war, "they all agreed that Iraq posed a threat." But didn't they all agree that Iraq posed a threat last year, before the White House began beating the drums of war?

Next Page: The more Bush talks about war, the less public opinion supports it

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