While I had become interested in War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism when I read reviews of this new book written by the Bush Administration’s former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy on Powerline (here and here), I didn’t resolve to buy it until I caught this Corner post where Rich Lowry observed:
I’m told that the Washington Post won’t be reviewing Doug Feith’s book. And the New York Times hasn’t reviewed it yet either. I know as conservatives we always complain about MSM outfits not reviewing our books, but this is truly outrageous. Apparently it’s OK to heap every failure in Iraq on Feith’s head, but then to turn around and pretend he’s a figure of no consequence when he writes a book.
If they wanted to criticize the decision to go to war and the execution of that decision, it would be helpful to hear what a chief figure in setting the Administration’s war policy had to say, particularly when that figure includes numerous documents related to that policy. But, I guess their interest wasn’t in presenting an honest portrayal of Administration policy-making. Â If the MSM was going to try to bury such a book, I would buy it to prevent them from doing so and to learn what this former official had to say.
Upon learning that Feith would speaking at the Santa Barbara Retreat of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, I bought my copy there so I could get his signature. So impressed was I when he spoke that evening, I asked if he would send me a copy of his remarks so I could excerpt them in a post promoting his book.
I wish more Administration officials had spoken as lucidly–and in fora more public than a gathering of conservative intellectuals and policy wonks.
Feith began by addressing the questions Horowitz had asked him:
Why did the President decide to go to war in Iraq —despite Saddam’s not having been a co-conspirator in the 9/11 attack? And the second is why did I write my book War and Decision?
He answered by pointing out that Bush “‘inherited the problem of Iraq and had two choices either “overthrow the regime” or “try to contain the danger.” Â Neither choice was free from peril.
What struck me the most about Feith’s remarks was not his thoughts about the choice the president would make, but a choice he made in writing about it, not to denigrate those with whom he disagreed:
While I was in the administration, I had many disagreements with other officials, but I generally thought that their arguments had important merits. When I disagreed, it was usually because I thought that an alternative strategy or policy had even more merit.
He concluded in a similar vein:
Too many former government officials write books that declare that their rivals were all foolish or lazy or dishonest. Such books do no good for the country and are worthless as history.
It’s too bad all too many in the MSM were too lazy to extend a similar courtesy to him–to read his book and address its points in a review available for public perusal, at least to let the public know what he had to say.
He observes that his book “tells a story that contradicts key parts of almost all the major books about the Iraq war,” refuting, for example, “the notion that President Bush came into office determined to go to war no matter what.” Discussing how the president’s team made the call to go to war, he quoted from his book:
Our main concern was not that Saddam would then attack the United States out of the blue. We worried rather that, in his effort to dominate the Persian Gulf and the broader Middle East, Saddam would aim to deter outside intervention by developing his conventional and WMD capabilities, along with the prohibited long-range missiles (or, possibly, terrorist alliances) to deliver them.
In some future clash— over Kuwait or some other Iraqi target— Saddam might draw inspiration from 9/11, providing terrorists with anthrax, smallpox, or nerve gas to attack us.
What impressed me about Feith was his civility, his command of the issues and his good humor. I consider myself fortunate that I had the chance to talk with him, albeit briefly, about his experiences in the Administration and in dealing with a hostile press, interested in him not so much to learn his contribution to policy-making, but instead to ridicule him as a caricature of a gung-ho pro-war conservative.
Doug Feith was far from the caricature of the out-of-touch Republican official. Instead her offered a lucid explanation of the decision to go to war that makes one wonder why the Administration didn’t put him at the forefront of their efforts to explain its policies to the American people. The president would have been better served had it relied more on Feith’s counsel in setting policy in Iraq and his verbal gifts in communicating that policy to the American people.
In the final analysis, the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were preemptive. They did their job and world teetered on. We can never know what the cost of invading Japan might have been. But we do know that the War in the Pacific came to a sudden and final conclusion.
The atomic bombs have been the subject of heated debate ever since, even leading Bill Clinton to apologize to the Japanese for their use.
The point is, preemptive war is never going to be without its critics. From my perch, Saddam got much better than he deserved and his lunatic pals like Kaddaffy Duck of Algeria and the chinless wonder of Syria have pretty much absorbed the lesson of stirring the pot of terrorism. Neither has engaged in training and backing terrorist missions against the West.(Israel is another story.) That is a fairly decent result for the Iraq war.
It is our British heritage that makes us stay and clean up after an invasion. We could abandon Iraq to sort out its own internal messes, but only if we leave them with the understanding that they will be closely watched and we will sweep down on them again if they get out of line. That is not the will of the Democrats. And, we Republicans would rather stay and get it right the first time.
The left can not admit any utility to this war, because they have systematically set about, as Kennedy said, to make “Iraq George Bush’s Vietnam.”
heliotrope, picture what would have happened if the Allies had invaded Germany in 1936, when Hitler, still kind of weak, re-militarized the Rhineland in violation of his treaty obligations. They should have. It would have averted WW2. But the British suffered from the same weakness we do now: left-wingers, determined to drag their own country down into a morass of socialism and self-hate. (Funny how the two go together.) The intervention, saving tens of millions of lives in a future war (WW2), would have undoubtedly ended in conspiracy theories and calls for the Prime Minister’s impeachment.
Reality always wins. America will either one day adopt wise policies, recovering from its self-hate and socialism – or (and in the meantime) it will suffer accordingly. But I hate the “suffer accordingly”.
It is our incompetent, mushy bureaucrats – and the President who went along with them – who made us stay too long and pay too much. Feith, Rumsfeld and Garner wanted to turn Iraq over to a native government right away, as we did in Afghanistan. The bureaucracy at State preferred an occupation period under Bremer, with overly zealous (i.e., destructive) de-Baathification. Bush gave it to them. Bush wisely ended it in 2005-6, but by that point, the damage was done; the nationalist/Baath-diehard insurgency had gotten a head of steam, that America has only recently turned around.
#2 — Without question, you are entitled to your opinions. But dropping nuclear bombs on Japan was “pre-emptive”? I sure don’t think it was “pre-emptive” to use weapons we happened to have in our arsenal in order to bring to a quick halt the war Japan started when it made a surprise attack on our fleet at Pearl Harbor.
By the way, a good friend of mine, the late General Curtis E. LeMay, did not think the nuclear bombings were necessary. In his position as commander of B-29 operations against mainland Japan, LeMay in the summer of 1945 made his objections known within proper military channels. He believed he needed just a few more weeks of heavy fire bombing of Japanese cities to accomplish what the nuclear bombs did. The last time I spent any time with him, just a few months before his death in October 1990, the subject came up and the General still felt the nuclear bombings were not necessary from a military standpoint.
Now, to the reason I wanted to add a comment to ths post. I agree with you, Dan GPW, that Feith would have been a very articulate and effective spokesman for President Bush’s decisions and policies in Iraq. As such he would have upstaged the secretary of defense and I don’t think Mr. Rumsfeld would have allowed that to happen.
Umm, Trace… Rumsfeld supported Feith. Rumsfeld recommended Feith’s appointment.
Well, Truman did.
#5..I believe that President Truman was correct in OKing the military recommendation that the nuclear bombs be used. LeMay did not fight the commander-in-chief’s decision. He simply told generals superior to him in the chain of command that he didn’t think nuclear weapons were necessary at that time. Once the decision was made, LeMay accepted it and did what was necessary to accommodate the 509th’s mission from Tinian.
In my comment I added that the General did not think the bombs were necessary from a “military standpoint”. Several historians speculated in books about Truman’s presidency or World War II that the president’s decision on use of the nuclear bombs was not based just on the hope the bombs would convince Japan to surrender. There was evidence that Truman used the bombs to also make a statement to Stalin that the U.S. was in a position not to be pushed around after the war. I always felt LeMay bought into that idea.
Trace, perhaps I should have put quotation marks around the word preemptive. Many Japanese feel to this day that the A-bombs saved millions of their own lives. You state that Curtis LeMay thought he could burn Japan down in a few weeks. That is not consistent with his biography.
Japan is a group of islands that cover 146,000 square miles. In 1945 it had a population of 72 million. Tokyo had a population of 7 million and was consistently fire bombed. Osaka had a population of 3.2 million and was fire bombed. Nagoya had 1.3 million and was bombed. Kyoto had 1.1 million and was carefully avoided. Yokohama had a population of 1 million and was regularly bombed as that what seat of the Japanese navy in Tokyo Bay. Hiroshima had a population of 400 thousand. Sapporo had a population of 200 thousand. The remaining population lived in cities of 100 thousand or less or in villages. In 1945, much of the architecture in the cities and nearly all of it in villages consisted of wood and paper.
The A-bomb on Hiroshima killed 140,000 within the first year with most dying from the blast. The A-bomb on Nagasaki killed 80,000 within the first year with most dying from the blast.
I have travelled Japan extensively and know it intimately. I lecture there regularly and in discussing the war with their historians, I can assure you that no Japanese I have ever met would have preferred the fire bomb alternative. When LeMay ordered the March, 1945 fire bombing of Tokyo, it cost over 100,000 Japanese lives and burned over 16 square miles of the city.
What I find strange in your remarks is that it runs counter to the facts that LeMay was in charge of the atomic strikes and later developed the SAC nuclear strike force. LeMay did not prefer fire bombing. He employed fire bombing because the cruddy upper atmosphere weather over Japan made high altitude precision bombing difficult to achieve. LeMay took a lot of flak for the fire bombings, because US pows were badly beaten as a result of them. For many years, the Tokyo fire bombing caused more heated discussion about war tactics than the atomic bombing. LeMay defended his actions by saying that “shortening the war by one day was worth the means.” LeMay was a hot shot and the youngest 4 star since Ulysses S. Grant. He had a long and remarkable career and his Berlin Airlift was a masterpiece. I do not doubt that anecdotes abound that would warp his accepted biography.
People of fame and power know that words and thoughts will be attributed to them and they learn quickly to guard their thoughts carefully. LeMay’s Commander in Chief ordered him to employ the atomic bombs. But General Curtis LeMay had second thoughts or did so under duress, it is not part of his written record.
#7 – Now now, ht. Don’t trip up Trace’s claims to primacy with facts. After all, he knows what Goldwater would think about Iraq from beyond the grave. 😉
An elementary observation. Well known. But it makes Truman’s decision all the more brilliant, doesn’t it? He got 2 for the price of 1. He made the right decision, based on military facts of the Japan war… AND a statement to Stalin.
#7 heliotrope — You raise a lot of questions and I would like to try to answer them in what I think can be an interesting discussion between us. But it will have to wait until at least Monday. So I hope you check back to this post early next week.
I find myself in a situation only other grandfathers can appreciate.
I’m actually ashamed of myself. Every Father’s Day weekend since my wife and I and the younger boys, our twins, started spending the summer months on our small farm out on the Great Plains, our married daughter and two married sons and their families have joined us for a few days. This year I’ve had trouble getting arrival commitments from the children and my wife has seemed lax in getting the groceries needed (we have to drive an hour each way into an adjoining state to find a grocery store that has everything we need). I have been curt in phone conversations with the children and have had harsh words with my wife.
Just a couple of hours ago I found out why everyone was “trying to ruin” my Father’s Day. My three oldest granddaughters arrived with a special surprise. They’ve made reservations out west for a weekend of whitewater rafting with Grandpa. The rest of the family will be here at the farm when we return. We’re leaving for the nearest airport in a few minutes and as soon as one of our company crews gets a plane up here we’ll head west.
Two of the granddaughters are in college — one graduates next spring — and the third will be a senior in high school. They’re all very intelligent and very funny so I look forward to long conversations and a lot of laughs around the campfire.
I’m sure no one else is interested in all this but as a proud Grandpa I feel like shouting to the whole world what great granddaughters I have!
To ILoveCapitalism #8 — There’s no disagreement between us on why Truman used the nuclear bombs. Even if intelligence might have indicated the Japanese would be surrendering soon, Truman would have been justified in using the bombs to send a message to Stalin.
I’ve always, going back to when I was a history major in college, considered Harry Truman one of the nation’s greatest presidents, ranking him ahead of Franklin Roosevelt. One of the reasons was his courage to use the nuclear bombs in face of strong opposition from the scientists and his knowing that once the bombs were no longer secret the scientists would spark a public debate about using the bombs. And I told Truman that the only time I met him, for a few minutes in the Truman Library in Independence, Missouri.
This is a little Off Topic, but still on the subject of the war, so seems as good a place as any. A Jerusalem Post writer I respect, Caroline Glick, notes that:
She goes on to discuss the potential for Iraq to become an overt or covert strategic ally of Israel as well. Read the whole thing.
Truman did NOT have strong opposition to using the atomic bombs from Stimson, Groves, Parsons, LeMay, Pasons, Oppenheimer, Bethe, Byrnes, Dennison or anyone else in the top echelon. His criticism came after the bombs were dropped. On June 1, 1945, the Interim Committee recommended the atomic bomb be used as soon as possible. The official decision to drop the bombs was included in the draft order of July 24, 1945 which constituted the final order for dropping the bombs. An extremely abbreviated time line of the events (from official documents and minutes) involving Truman, LeMay, etc. follows:
April 12, 1945 -Pres. Roosevelt dies of a brain hemorrhage.
April 13, 1945 – Pres. Truman learns of the existence of atomic bomb development from Secretary of War Henry Stimson.
April 25, 1945 – Truman receives first in-depth briefing on the Manhattan Project from Stimson and Groves.
April 27, 1945 – The first meeting of the Target Committee to select targets for atomic bombing. Seventeen targets are selected for study: Tokyo Bay (for a non-lethal demonstration), Yokohama, Nagoya, Osaka, Kobe, Hiroshima, Kokura, Fukuoka, Nagasaki, and Sasebo (some of these are soon dropped because they had already been burned down).
May 9, 1945 – General procedures for atomic bombing are completed by D.M. Dennison, under Parsons.
May 10-11, 1945 – Target Committee reconvenes. On the committee now are Oppenheimer, Von Neumann, Parsons, and Bethe. Meeting discusses issues combat employment of atomic bombs (e.g. proper burst height, etc.). Target list is shortened to Kyoto, Hiroshima, Yokohama, and Kokura Arsenal (Niigata is considered).
May 28, 1945 – Target Committee meets with Lt. Col. Tibbets in attendance. The meeting reviews preparation for delivering atomic bombs, and status of conventional bombing of Japan. Tibbets estimates that by Jan. 1, 1946 all major cities of Japan will have been destroyed by fire bombing. The target list is now Kyoto, Hiroshima, and Niigata.
May 30, 1945 – Sec. of War Stimson rules out Kyoto, the ancient capital of Japan, as a target for atomic attack.
June 1, 1945 – The Interim Committee, organized to guide the final conduct of the war and the post-war reconstruction and lead by Secretary of State Designate James Byrnes, issues the recommendations that the atomic bomb be dropped as soon as possible, that an urban area be the target, and that no prior warning be given.
June 10, 1945 – 509th Composite Group crews begin arriving on Tinian with their modified B-29s.
June 27, 1945 – Groves meets with Oppenheimer and Parsons to plan delivery of atomic bombs to the Pacific theater.
Late June, 1945 -LeMay estimates that the Twentieth Air Force will finish destroying the 60 most important cities in Japan by Oct. 1.
July 16, 1945 – At 5:29:45 a.m. Gadget is detonated in the first atomic explosion in history. The explosive yield is 20-22 Kt (initially estimated at 18.9 Kt), vaporizing the steel tower.
July 20, 1945 – The 509th begins flying practice missions over Japan.
July 23, 1945 – Stimson, in Potsdam for meeting between Truman and Stalin, receives current target list. First A-bomb test unit dropped by 509th at Tinian.
July 24, 1945 -Truman discloses the existence of the atomic bomb to Stalin (who had already been informed about it by his spies). Groves drafts the directive authorizing the use of the atomic bombs as soon as bomb availability and weather permit. It lists the following targets in order of priority: Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata, and Nagasaki. This directive constitutes final authorization for atomic attack, no further orders are issued.
July 26, 1945 -Truman issues the Potsdam Declaration, requiring unconditional surrender of the Japanese armed forces.
July 28, 1945 -The Japanese government rejects the Potsdam surrender demand.
July 31, 1945 – The assembly of Little Boy is completed. It is ready for use the next day.
August 1, 1945 – A typhoon approaching Japan prevents launching an attack with Little Boy. Several days are required for weather to clear.
August 4, 1945 – Tibbets briefs the 509th Composite Group about the impending attack. He reveals that they will drop immensely powerful bombs, but the nature of the weapons are not revealed.
August 5, 1945 -At 1500 Gen. LeMay officially confirms the mission for the next day. Tibbets will take over as pilot, Parsons will fly as weaponeer. Little Boy is loaded on the plane.
August 6, 1945 -0000, final briefing, the target of choice is Hiroshima. Tibbets is pilot, Lewis is co-pilot. 0245, Enola Gay begins takeoff roll. 0730, the bomb is armed. 0850, Flying at 31,000 ft Enola Gay crosses Shikoku due east of Hiroshima. 0915:17 Little Boy is released at 31060 feet. 0916:02 (8:16:02 Hiroshima time) Little Boy explodes at an altitude of 1850 feet, 550 feet from the aim point, the Aioi Bridge, with a yield of 12.5-18 Kt (best estimate is 15 Kt).
August 7, 1945 -The date for dropping Fat Man is moved up to August 10, then to August 9, to avoid a projected 5 days of bad weather. This requires skipping many check out procedures during assembly.
August 8, 1945 -At Foreign Minister Togo’s request Ambassador Sato tries to persuade the Soviets to mediate surrender negotiations. Molotov cancel’s the meeting, then announces that the Soviet Union is at war with Japan effective the next day.
August 9, 1945 -0347, Bock’s Car takes off from Tinian, the target of choice is Kokura Arsenal. Charles Sweeney is pilot. Soon after takeoff he discovers that the fuel system will not pump from the 600 gallon reserve tank. 1044, Bock’s Car arrives at Kokura but finds it covered by haze, the aimpoint cannot be seen. Flak and fighters appear, forcing the plane to stop searching for it. Sweeney turns toward Nagasaki, the only secondary target in range. Upon arriving at Nagasaki, Bock’s Car has enough fuel for only one pass over the city even with an emergency landing at Okinawa. Nagasaki is covered with clouds, but one gap allows a drop several miles from the intended aimpoint. 11:02 (Nagasaki time) Fat Man explodes at 1950 feet near the perimeter of the city, scoring a direct hit on the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works. Yield is 19-23 Kt (best estimate is 21 Kt).
August 10, 1945 – Japanese civilian and military leaders are still unable to agree on accepting the Potsdam Decree’s surrender terms. Emperor Hirohito instead breaks the tradition of imperial non-intervention in government and orders that surrender be accepted, provided that the Emperor be allowed to retain his position.
August 11, 1945 -Truman orders a halt to further atomic bombing until further orders are issued. Strategic Air Forces Carl Spaatz halts area fire bombing.
August 13, 1945 -Truman orders area fire bombing resumed. Gen. Henry Arnold, US Army Air Force, launches the largest raid on Japan of the war with over 1000 B-29s and other aircraft, carrying 6000 tons of bombs.
August 14, 1945 -Following leaflet bombing of Tokyo with surrender terms, Hirohito orders that an Imperial Edict accepting surrender be issued. 2:49 p.m. (1:49 a.m. Washington time), Japanese news agency announces surrender.
August 17, 1945 – Oppenheimer warns Stimson that:
atomic weapons would improve qualitatively and quantitatively over coming years;
adequate defenses against nuclear weapons would not be developed; the US would not retain hegemony over nuclear weapons; wars could not be prevented even if better nuclear weapons were developed.
October 16, 1945 – Oppenheimer resigns as director of Los Alamos, accepting a post at Caltech.
The “intelligence” concerning Japan’s toying with surrender is hardly “intelligence.” Beginning in April, the military government asked the Russians to help draft an “end of hostilities” accord. These overtures were immediately shared with the United States. At no time did the military government of Japan entertain unconditional surrender. The Emperor finally ordered the surrender on the condition that he remain emperor. Although MacArthur wrote that request into the new government, Japan was forced to surrender unconditionally with no exception made for the emperor.
Hopefully, this helps to establish the actual records of events.