John Rapley - Foreign Focus IT HAS been a difficult autumn for US President George W. Bush. Unable to get allied support for the reconstruction of Iraq, the US has been forced to go it alone. While daily attacks on American soldiers continue, the White House has had to ask Congress for a whopping 87 billion new dollars in reconstruction money. The request comes amid a spiralling budget deficit and a so-called jobless economic recovery. As things stand, President Bush is on track to become the first president since Herbert Hoover to preside over an economy in which employment contracted.
Yet while Mr. Bush's opponents are delightedly drawing analogies with Mr. Hoover, whom voters expelled from office in 1932 after only one term, some are now beginning to hope he might even be showing similarities to another Republican president from the past, Richard Nixon. Discontent has been growing in the American public over the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and suggestions that the US government like Britain's might have cooked the intelligence books in order to make the case for war.
OPINION POLLS
Public opinion polls showed that President Bush's approval rating, which had soared after 9/11 and remained high for the better part of two years, has now sunk back to the levels of two years ago. Then, when it seemed the news could get no worse, it emerged that someone in the White House had leaked the name of a CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) agent to the press.
This had to do with the Niger dossier in the case for war on Iraq. In a now-infamous declaration, President Bush earlier this year said that Iraq had tried to purchase uranium from an African country in order to make a nuclear bomb. The country in question was Niger. The problem was, the CIA had dispatched a consultant with ties to Niger to investigate, and he reported the claim to be without substance.
The White House says it was unaware of the report, making the president's statement a mistake, rather than a lie. Piqued, the consultant in question who is not a CIA employee wrote a newspaper column this past summer in which he ridiculed the White House's protestations of innocence.
Someone at the White House then telephoned selected journalists to say the consultant was married to a CIA agent, and that she had suggested he be given the Niger assignment. Despite its pretensions to being the world's centre, Washington, DC is like a small southern town when it comes down to it. People quickly connected the dots to expose the agent.
Revealing a spy's identity is a criminal offence, and why someone in the White House would have risked a jail sentence to do so is a bit mystifying. Two lines of thought have emerged to explain the incident. One is that a junior staffer made a hash of things. Intending to belittle the consultant by saying he only got the job through CIA nepotism, somebody carelessly overlooked the ramifications of the leak.
SERIOUS CHARGE
The other, more serious charge, is that the deed was done by someone higher up, and quite possibly by Mr. Bush's right-hand man, Karl Rove. Those who know Mr. Rove say it bears his imprint: an attempt to bully anybody in the intelligence community who is thinking of going public against the administration into silent submission.
Regardless, a criminal investigation has begun. It could be the beginning of the next Watergate, or it could peter out, but it will certainly make for interesting drama.
As for Mr. Bush's other woes: is the man finally on the ropes? It's too early to say. My own hunch is that the war in Iraq will continue going badly. However, it may get no worse. The White House budget request rather cleverly inflated some figures to allow leeway down the road. If the request goes through, the bitter pill will have been swallowed well before next year's election.
As to the economy, there are rough seas ahead for the US, but the current liquidity-induced rally may well continue through the next election. If Mr. Bush can survive this round, he may come back fighting with a little more strength, making next year's election a fight worth watching.
John Rapley is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Government, UWI, Mona.
