Abstract

Accountability

The author speculates on the reasons why United States President George W. Bush has not yet been held accountable for his alleged lies and misrepresentations regarding the invasion of Iraq. A year has passed since Congress authorized George W. Bush to launch a war against the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Each of the justifications for the war put forward by the Administration has now proved either entirely imaginary or so remote as to appear fanciful. The President said that the United States must go to war because Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and was ready to use them, but the American team, led by David Kay, sent to discover those weapons has now, after four months of searching, had to report that it has found none. The President said that Saddam gave support to Al Qaeda, but no such support has been demonstrated. The President said he was going to war to establish a democracy in Iraq so splendid that all the Middle East would emulate it, but six months after the war's end Iraq remains virtually without a government, and resistance to the American occupation is on the rise. Never before has an Administration's entire justification for war, not just its triggering incident, proved to be a mirage. Will anyone be held accountable for the disaster? What are people to say or do or even think if the President states something that is already known by the whole world to be untrue? The most important actor in the story of the support for the war, however, is of course the voting public, which, according to polls, overwhelmingly supported the war when it was launched but now doubts the wisdom of its choice. Accountability, ultimately, rests in its hands. Can an Administration take the country to war on false pretexts and get away with it?