"Shock and dismay," was how government professor Michael Mastanduno described the "Shock and Awe" campaign used by American forces in Iraq.
On Friday, Mastanduno moderated a four-person panel at which participants discussed the war -- its causes, strategy and tactics, conclusions and implications -- and differed sharply in their impressions. Former Senator Gary Hart, Professor John Mueller of Ohio State University, Professor Allan Stam of the government department and Jake Tapper '91, a journalist for Salon.com, were in attendance.
Tapper began the discussion by chronicling the history between the first Gulf War crisis and the present war. He characterized the political differences between the Bush administrations as a son's "rebellion."
He told of the formation of a group of advisors during the Reagan administration, which Tapper referred to as members of "Team B," who were highly critical of George Bush's direction at the Central Intelligence Agency. This group would go on to become advisors to the current president.
Team B, Tapper said, "rejects the old theory of containment and rather faults on the side of being proactive. Team B thinking falls on this side after Sept. 11." He said that the old theory of alliances would change in that coalitions may now exist for a single purpose only, and "might not last beyond the initial conflict."
Stam, who is a former member of the U.S. Army Special Forces Unit, said that our presence in Iraq is "because of the stubbornness and pride of three men: Saddam Hussein, Jacques Chirac and Bush."
He said despite the fact that the war has not gone as quickly or as easily as some would have hoped, the U.S. military effort has gone "astonishingly well" overall.
To the amusement of the large crowd, Stam brought up the Rolling Stones' song, "You Can't Always Get What You Want," quoting the line, "you get what you need."
"The U.S. military has not been able to give us what we want -- a quick collapse of the Baathist regime. But at the end of the day, they're going to give us what we need," Stam said.
As he described the road to the destruction of the Iraqi military, a look of skepticism radiated from Hart.
Mueller, an expert on national security, held the opinion that, "This could be the most disastrous foreign policy in the history of the American Republic, except for Vietnam."
He said that although there are many, many Iraqis who hate Hussein and wish to see the end of his regime, it isn't necessarily the case that there is any love for the United States in Iraq.
Mueller recalled footage of Iraqi citizens climbing over each other to collect supply packages being handed out by American and British troops, and the disdainful looks that were given to the photojournalists recording the moments for history.
"You bombed us, starved us, now you're taking pictures of us climbing over each other like animals," he imagined the Iraqis thinking, and said that our incessant news coverage of the war would lead to great resentment.
Hart focused largely on terrorist retaliations on American soil. His Commission on National Security in the 21st Century had written a report warning of a massive terrorist attack almost two years to the day before Sept. 11, 2001, a day that Hart insists on calling "the first attack."
"Why, when our society was warned, did we not pay attention?" he asked almost bitterly. "This was not Pearl Harbor. We were warned."
Hart said that the winner in the present war is Osama bin Laden -- because he managed to escape American forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan and can now see anti-American feelings rise internationally, as the United States committed 250,000 forces to invade a sovereign Arab nation.
He repeatedly stated that the United States will be attacked in retaliation for our presence in Iraq, and that we will not be prepared to handle the consequences when the attack occurs.
Although he disagreed with the war, Hart asked everyone to support the troops in Iraq.
"No person in this country should blame the military," Hart advised. "Treat them with respect. Treat them with honor. Whatever goes wrong over there isn't their fault."
