After that we went on to other topics and areas of the globe. Later, I invited myself into the Oval Office and sat down with President Bush. "George, I won't deny that I have my differences with some of these guys, but this is more than that. We're not just talking about money. This isn't about taxes or deficits or Wall Street. This is about sending young men and women to their deaths. Some of these guys think it's going to be just like ten years ago, cheap and easy. That was a onetime thing, a once in a thousand years event. Real war is a lot messier, and it is never quick and easy. I am begging you, go slow on this."
"Carl, I appreciate your thoughts. It is still too soon to know what we need to do. If I do have to send our troops in, I won't do it lightly."
I thanked him and left. I was not reassured. The idea of avenging his father's 'defeat' rankled the man. Realistically, the Saudis would never have allowed us to go to Baghdad and depose Hussein. On the plus side, almost immediately afterwards, I was asked to a meeting with Colin Powell, who basically promised to keep me completely up to date on whatever Cheney and Wolfowitz and Meyers were up to. He was as concerned as I was.
A couple of months later we had a similar meeting, but to this one I made an invitation and brought in Richard Clarke, the Counter-Terrorism Adviser to the National Security Adviser. He put together a dog and pony show on what both he and I felt was a much more serious threat, Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. He mentioned Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda specifically, along with several other groups. The only thing that Bush and Cheney wanted to know was the kind of contacts they had with the Iraqis. Clarke gave them a funny look and glanced over at me, then said, "I'm sure the Iraqis are keeping track of them, simply because Al Qaeda wants to kill Saddam Hussein. Other than that, they have no involvement with them."
"What about the Iranians? Are they working for the Iranians?", asked Wolfowitz.
"Uh, bin Laden is Sunni and the Iranians are Shiites. They wouldn't be working together. More like they'd be targeting each other."
Nobody paid him any attention after that. I was astonished that these geniuses didn't even know the religions of the people they were planning to invade. It didn't matter to them. We would invade in another lightning campaign, destroying the Iraqi Army in a matter of days, roll into Baghdad, occupy the palace, and capture Hussein. It might take two weeks, tops. The locals, elated after years of oppression under the boot heel of the dictator (I heard that phrase used) would rise up and welcome us with open arms. Within a matter of months there would be free elections and our hand-picked candidates would take over, and in their gratitude, would allow American oil companies first crack at all that Iraqi oil. It might cost us a few hundred billion, but the oil would pay for it. Even better, once all their neighbors saw democracy taking hold, they would all rise up and overthrow their governments, too (Syria, Iran, etc.) It would be the beginning of democracy in the Arab world!
In hindsight this was as big a blunder as Viet Nam had been. The 'boot heel of the dictator' was the only thing keeping everybody from killing each other! They rose up and promptly wanted us to get lost while they went about a delightful little civil war. There were no oil revenues, since Hussein hadn't invested penny one in the infrastructure, so it was falling down around his ears, and everybody thought blowing up their enemy's wells and refineries was a good idea. Meanwhile we were stuck there about ten years and spent at least $2 trillion on this disaster, while getting tens of thousands of troops killed and maimed. Meanwhile, none of the neighbors rose up, and what revolts did occur during the 'Arab Spring' had nothing to do with Iraq. At the same time, we wasted our best shot at stabilizing Afghanistan, and wasted another $2 trillion over there.
The usual response to my bringing up these unpleasant questions was that Cheney would maneuver me out of the country. Not to important places, but there are a lot of rinky-dink shitholes where the Vice Prime Minister dies and the American Vice President needs to make a formal visit for a state funeral. There are also many facts that need finding in deepest and darkest Africa. As far as I could determine, the most important fact I needed to find was the location of the 'This way out of Africa' sign! This usually would tie me up for a week or so, while Cheney and Wolfowitz would undo whatever damage I had done in their campaign to go to war in the Middle East.
It only got worse. We had another meeting in July, where I brought Clarke in again, to discuss the latest intelligence on Al Qaeda. Everything I had been hearing that spring and summer indicated that something was in the works. There was talk of 'chatter', emails and cell phone calls from strange people to even stranger people. Something was going to happen. I asked Clarke what he thought it was, and then asked him about various scenarios straight out of Tom Clancy novels. Two days after the July meeting, the counter-terrorism office for the National Security Adviser was eliminated as being duplicative of efforts at CIA. Richard Clarke had been fired.
On the plus side, George Bush was still talking to me and listening, to the extent that he listened to anybody not telling him things he didn't want to hear. He had been cool after Clinton tried to land me in the jackpot with the release of my classified records. After the election, however, I called George and asked for the account number for the third $5 million payoff, and he brightened right up again. I made the last installment the afternoon of the Inauguration. As I told him, my word and my deals meant a lot to me.
Surprisingly, the one area I ended up supporting George was in education. He was pushing his No Child Left Behind Act, a major overhaul of the way schools were funded and graded. This was a massive bill, and it encompassed some major changes. I knew that the bill was not perfect, and that it had any number of flaws in it, but the way America did public education was deeply broken. If the definition of madness was to do the same thing over and over, and to expect a different result, then the way the U.S. did education was madness.
Personally, I thought one of the biggest improvements would be to cut the unions down to size. As it stood, the teachers' unions had no interest in improving education and only an interest in getting more money for teachers and the unions. They coated it all with a fine layer of sweetness and light. This was actually one of the big areas where Marilyn and I argued. She had gone through the process, getting a bachelor's and a master's in education, and she had bought their bullshit hook, line, and sinker. It was one of those areas we agreed to disagree.
Surprisingly, George used one of our discussions in the major speech he gave to introduce the bill. I had talked to him about breaking the unions and the stranglehold they had on the system.
"We have a system where math teachers can't do algebra, where English teachers can't parse a sentence, and where chemistry teachers aren't qualified to work in a laboratory, but they are teachers because they have a degree in education. Meanwhile, Vice President Buckman, who has a doctorate in applied mathematics, and is qualified to teach half a dozen subjects at the college level, is unqualified to teach in our high schools, because he doesn't have a degree in education! This is a deeply flawed system."
To a certain extent this threw me into the fire, which undoubtedly pleased Dick Cheney, but I didn't care. It was a subject I could speak to, and did so on several occasions.
It wasn't just foreign affairs that had me in hot water with some of the others in the White House. To be fair, a chunk of it was my own fault; I should have known better than to pick a fight. It was my general disdain with the hard core right wingers running loose. They weren't all in the government, either. Rush Limbaugh had been running and gunning for me ever since I had begun to make a national name for myself. All through the short list period prior to my selection as Bush's running mate he had been complaining I wasn't Republican enough, meaning conservative enough.