Silencing a Skeptic

An excerpt from 'Hubris,' the new Isikoff and Corn book about how the Bush administration sold the Iraq war to its supporters

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Newsweek

Updated: 10:08 p.m. ET Sept. 8, 2006

Sept. 08, 2006 - As the White House pressed its case for war against Iraq in the fall of 2002, one senior GOP lawmaker agonized about what to do. In this exclusive excerpt from 'Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War,' a new book by Michael Isikoff and David Corn, is the previously untold story of how Dick Armey, who was then House majority leader and a silent skeptic about Iraq, succumbed to Vice President Dick Cheney's pressure - much to Armey's later regret.

President Bush and Dick Cheney with Dick Armey outside the Oval Office in July 2002

The president's message was direct. There was no time to wait. The showdown with Saddam Hussein, the dictator of Iraq, had to start right away.

It was the morning of September 4, 2002, and George W. Bush had summoned eighteen senior members of the House and Senate to the Cabinet Room of the White House. When the lawmakers took their seats at the imposing oval mahogany table, they were given copies of a letter from the president. "America and the civilized world face a critical decision in the months ahead," it began. "The decision is how to disarm an outlaw regime that continues to possess and develop weapons of mass destruction." Bush told the assembled leaders he needed a quick vote in Congress on a resolution that would grant him the authority to take on Saddam - perhaps with military action. He wanted this vote within six weeks - before Congress left town so members could campaign for reelection. It was the start of an extraordinary public relations campaign by the White House to persuade the American people - and the world - that Saddam was such a pressing threat that war might be the only option.

Listening to the president, Senator Majority Leader Tom Daschle felt trapped. House and Senate members were gearing up for the final stretch of the campaign - with control of the Senate up for grabs. Bush was informing them that the national debate would now focus on Iraq, not health care, not tax cuts, not the environment or anything the Democrats wanted to talk about. Daschle pressed Bush on why there was a need to move quickly. Sure, Saddam was a problem that had to be addressed. But what was new? How immediate was the threat? Where was the tangible evidence?

As he did so, Daschle was thinking of one man: Karl Rove. The previous January, Rove, Bush's master strategist, had telegraphed his intention to use terrorism and national security issues to hammer Democrats in the fall campaign. "We can go to the country on this issue," Rove had proclaimed at a Republican gathering, because the American people "trust the Republican Party to do a better job of strengthening America's military might and thereby protecting America." Daschle wondered whether Bush was cynically pushing the Iraq threat as a campaign gambit.

The day before, Daschle had attended a breakfast with Bush in the president's private dining room with Cheney, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, Senate minority leader Trent Lott, and House minority leader Dick Gephardt. And he had put the same questions to the president. Wouldn't it be better, he asked, to postpone this until after the election and take politics out of the question? Bush had looked at Cheney who shot the president what Daschle would describe as a "half-smile." Then Bush turned back to Daschle and said, "We just have to do it now." That was it, Daschle would later recall: "He didn't answer the question." But Bush's sidelong glance to Cheney told Daschle that the two of them had thought this through.
Now in the Cabinet Room, within a larger group of legislators, Daschle received no more satisfying a reply, as Bush insisted that the House and Senate proceed quickly. "The issue isn't going away," Bush told the congressional leaders. "You can't let it linger."

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Daschle was not the only congressional leader in the White House feeling uneasy that morning. Although it never got reported at the time, the most critical comments came from a Republican leader who rarely weighed in on national security issues: House Majority Leader Dick Armey, the number two Republican in the House. A month earlier, Armey, a Texan, had bluntly voiced his own misgivings about a war against Iraq. While campaigning in Iowa for a GOP congressional candidate, Armey told reporters that Saddam was "a blowhard." But as long as the Iraqi dictator didn't bother anybody outside his own borders, Armey had said, he couldn't see any basis for invading Iraq: "We Americans don't make unprovoked attacks."

Armey's Iowa comments had generated a brief flurry of media attention. They also upset the White House. Dan Bartlett, a deputy to White House communications director Karen Hughes, called Terry Holt, Armey's press secretary, and complained. "It isn't helpful for Armey to be out there speaking out against the president," Bartlett said, according to Holt. Armey dropped the issue. Armey was a plain-speaking, free-market-over-all economist, with an endless passion for country music. Neither he -- nor anyone else in Washington -- considered Armey a foreign policy wizard. But the notion of going to war with Iraq made no sense to him. He assumed the administration's war talk was merely bluster on Bush's part -- an effort to intimidate Saddam into accepting the return of United Nations weapons inspectors.

But in the Cabinet Room , watching Bush pressure his congressional colleagues, Armey realized that Bush was serious, that he seemed committed to launching a war and overthrowing Saddam. He thought of another president from Texas, Lyndon Johnson, and what a reckless war had done to his administration. Armey, who had not said anything else about Iraq after his Iowa outburst, decided this was the moment to speak his mind directly to Bush. "Mr. President," he said, "if you go in there, you're likely to be stuck in a quagmire that will endanger your domestic agenda for the rest of your presidency."

As he explained his thinking, Armey got worked up and ended his comments with a bowdlerized line from Shakespeare he had gleaned from a country music song: "Our fears make cowards of us all." What did he mean by this? Armey believed that Bush and other administration officials were over-reacting to the country's post-9/11 fears. It was as if the Iraq warriors were gripped with what he later called a "he-man macho psychosis where they felt the need to go out and shoot somebody to show you're the tough guy on the block." Armey could tell his comments were not going over well. "I was the skunk in the garden party," he said later.

When Armey finished, Cheney spoke. It would be a good idea, the vice president said curtly, if Armey would not dissent from the president's position in public. Frankly, Armey replied, I didn't realize there was a specific White House position yet. Then Bush, according to Armey, "asked me if I would withhold any public comments until I had all the briefings. So I could understand how necessary this was." The president was saying, wait until you've seen the intelligence. That would prove why urgent action -- maybe even a war -- was required.

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Had Armey spoken up after leaving the Cabinet Room, he might have sparked a ruckus that could have complicated the White House's upcoming efforts. But out of deference to Bush and Cheney, he agreed to hold his fire. "I won't speak publicly about this again," Armey promised the president, "until I'm fully briefed."*

Upon exiting the meeting, the congressional leaders stood on the White House driveway and issued brief remarks for the assembled reporters. Senator John McCain said Bush had made a "convincing case" for action. House Speaker Dennis Hastert commented that he expected Congress would vote on a resolution before the elections. House minority leader Dick Gephardt, who during the meeting had indicated he was willing to work with Bush to convince Americans that Saddam's WMDs were a real danger, said that Bush had to demonstrate to the public that "this is something that we need to do and to take seriously." Daschle, more guarded, repeated the concerns he had raised inside: "What new information exists? What has changed in recent months or years?" He added that he was "hoping for more information and greater clarity" in the weeks ahead. Armey walked by the TV cameras, saying nothing. But he still had his questions. Why a war? Why now?

By late September, the White House was stepping up the pressure. Nearly every day, administration officials were trekking up to Capitol Hill to offer briefings, hoping to coax unsure lawmakers and bolster those already aboard. They would begin citing new claims -- about Saddam providing chemical weapons training for Al Qaeda and building a fleet of mobile biological weapons labs. At the same time, Bush seemed to be viewing the cause in stark and personal terms.

On the afternoon of September 26, 2002, Bush was at a Houston fundraiser for Republican senatorial candidate John Cornyn. Surrounded by old friends from Texas, he made his most bellicose public comments about Saddam yet. There would be "no discussion, no debate, no negotiation" with the Iraqi dictator. He repeated the standard litany: Saddam had tortured his own citizens, gassed the Kurds, invaded his neighbors: "There's no doubt his hatred is mainly directed at us. There's no doubt he can't stand us." But it was one particular line in this speech that would grab worldwide attention: "After all, this is a guy that tried to kill my dad at one time."

Bush was referring to a plot by a group of Iraqis and Kuwaitis who had been arrested walking in the Kuwaiti dessert one night in April 1993. They were later charged by the Kuwaiti government with conspiring to assassinate George H.W. Bush with a car bomb during a ceremonial visit the former president and his family had made to Kuwait that month.

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The Kuwaitis rested their case on the discovery of a car bomb and a confession made the by alleged ringleader, Wali al-Ghazali, after four days in Kuwaiti custody. But much about the case was hazy. Amnesty International questioned whether al-Ghazali had been tortured -- a practice not unheard of in Kuwaiti jails. A classified CIA report, leaked at the time to the Boston Globe, expressed skepticism about the Kuwaiti government's claims, noting that Kuwait may have "cooked the books." No testimony or documents ever tied Saddam to the plot. "I had no evidence of any direct order" by Saddam, the U.S. ambassador at the time, Edward (Skip) Gnehm, acknowledged in a 2006 interview (although Gnehm, and the Clinton administration, endorsed the Kuwaiti verdict of Iraqi complicity.)

The fact that Bush was pointing to the incident nine years later to explain his current policy made some members of Congress uncomfortable. Armey later said he "just cringed" when he read about the president's comment. "Wow," he remarked to his wife, "I hope that's not what this is all about."

At one point, other members of Congress were able to witness Bush's intense feelings about Saddam up close. At a breakfast with a few congressional leaders in late September, Bush expressed exasperation when the issue of a diplomatic settlement arose. Saddam had shown his contempt for the United States, he told the legislators. There was no use in talking to him. "Do you want to know what the foreign policy of Iraq is to the United States is?" Bush asked angrily. The president then answered his own question by raising his middle finger and thrusting it inches in front Senator Daschle's face, according to a witness. "F--k the United States!" Bush continued. "That's what it is -- and that's why we're going to get him!"

"Trust me on this, Dick," Vice President Dick Cheney told House Majority Leader Dick Armey. "When I get done with this briefing, you're going to be with me."

It was an afternoon late in September, and Armey had been invited over to the vice president's small hideaway office in the U.S. Capitol. This was the briefing Bush had promised Armey three weeks earlier. Ever since then, Armey had bowed to the president's wishes and not said anything in public about his doubts about the Bush's stand. But the White House understood Armey's importance. He was the number two Republican in the House. If he broke ranks, that would be a problem. So Cheney was dispatched to do the job himself.

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Armey thought Cheney's opening remark was odd: "He didn't say you're going to be with us. He didn't say you're going to be with the president. He said you're going to be with me."
Over the next half hour, Cheney, surrounded by aides, pointed to pictures of the aluminum tubes, showed overhead images of nuclear sites supposedly under construction, displayed drawings of mobile biological labs and photographs of UAVs that could hit Israel and spread mass death. He talked about the "associations" and "relationships" between Saddam and al Qaeda. He noted that the Iraqis could slip miniaturized biological weapons (that fit in suitcases) to terrorists, who could bring them into the United States and kill thousands.

As Armey listened to Cheney and stared at the photos, it occurred to him that he couldn't really see anything in the pictures. They were aerial shots of buildings and other sites. Who knew what was in those buildings? Armey realized he had to rely on what Cheney was telling him. "It wasn't very convincing," Armey later recalled. "If I had gotten the same briefing from President Clinton or Al Gore, I probably would have said, 'Ah, bulls--t.' But you don't do that with your own people." He assumed Cheney was leveling him; it never occurred to Armey that the vice president was not telling him the whole story.

Armey asked few questions at the briefing; he didn't challenge Cheney on any point. As the briefing concluded, Armey thanked Cheney cordially and promised to mull over the matter. He didn't commit to voting for the resolution. But he was coming around.

As the White House stepped up the heat, Armey was being muscled by his own aides. His chief of staff laid it out for him: "This war is going to happen with your or without you". The train was leaving the station -- no matter what he said or did. Armey concluded, he later said, that he could "participate in the process and give it guidance or I could be a cranky voice on the outside and lose control." Armey decided to get on the train. He even agreed to introduce the Iraq resolution on the floor of the House.

After a week of debating, on October 10, the House was poised to voted on the legislation that would grant Bush the power to use military force "as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq" and to "enforce all relevant" UN Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.

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Armey, who had questioned the need for a war and Bush's motivations, gave the final emotional address before the members voted. Armey echoed the arguments that Cheney had made to him two weeks earlier. He talked about how Saddam with his "ongoing working relationships with a myriad of evil terrorist organizations" could provide them with biological weapons that would be concealed in suitcases that could be left "in a train depot, a service station, an airport." He declared that Saddam could attack Israel at any time and "to me, an attack on Israel is an attack on America." Armey closed his remarks with an impassioned plead to the president to use his new power wisely Choking up with tears, Armey referred to American troops and said, "Mr. President, we trust to you the best we have to give.

Armey had succumbed to Cheney's pressure. He had decided to be the good soldier, the loyal partisan. But this vote weighed upon him. For weeks afterward, he would agonize about it and try to convince himself that he had not actually voted for a war. He wanted to believe that he had merely given Bush the option to use military force, to strengthen the president's hand in pursuing a diplomatic solution to the Saddam problem. "I'll tell my grandchildren that," he later said. "I'll split that hair until hell freezes over." But Armey suspected he was lying to himself. In December of that year, he would be driving along a stretch of Texas highway when a country song would come on about a fellow who looked in the mirror and saw a stranger. The line hit him hard. He had voted for the war against his better instincts, Armey now thought, and he had become that stranger. Disappointed with himself, Armey was thankful he had a year ago decided to leave the House at the end of this term. Four years later, the vote on Iraq still weighed on him -- one of the biggest regrets of his public life.