A Patriot's History of the United States: From Columbus's Great Discovery to the War on Terror

by Larry Schweikart

  Unlike the Soviet infantry and armor doctrines that had failed in Afghanistan just twenty years earlier, the U.S. military employed dynamic, not static, tactics. An armored division might be used for one purpose, a smart bomb for another; Green Berets and Delta Force for certain tasks; air power for yet others. Bush told correspondent Bill Sammon, “We fought the first cavalry charge of the twenty-first century—special forces and CIA agents on wooden saddles with some of the most sophisticated technology developed by mankind.”44

  In many ways, Operation Enduring Freedom was even more successful than Desert Storm, routing the Taliban and Al Qaeda and searching them out in the Tora Bora mountains, where bin Laden was thought to have holed up. A massive bombing of the mountains in December either drove bin Laden farther underground or seriously wounded him. Within a few months, the Taliban were evicted, and special forces had hunted down and killed hundreds of Al Qaeda terrorists and arrested thousands of others for interrogation. By 2003, bin Laden had not made a single verifiable public appearence that could be time-stamped or dated, despite several tape recordings he released. In fact, he was becoming irrelevant as more subtle American financial attacks were shutting down much of the worldwide financial network supporting Al Qaeda and establishing a civilian functioning government in Afghanistan. One year after the attacks, it was thought that close to half of Al Qaeda’s leaders were dead or in custody.

  Another casualty of Operation Enduring Freedom was “gloomster” journalism. A Gallup Poll conducted in November 2001 found that 54 percent of the public disapproved of the news media, although Bush’s ratings remained in the high 80 percent range. Indeed, the news media was the only major American organization to see its approval numbers decline (and the numbers declined precipitously). On the other hand, for the first time, polls asked people what they thought of cabinet members, and again, the results stunned the hostile media. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld had an 80 percent approval rating, Vice President Cheney had a 75 percent rating, and Secretary of State Powell topped the list with an 87 percent favorable rating. Bush’s instincts for choosing competent people, far from insulating him from decision making, had proven prescient.45

  Terrorists still had the potential for devastating attacks, and several were intercepted before completing their missions. Richard Reid (Muslim name Riady), an Al Qaeda-connected shoe bomber, attempted to smuggle explosives through his shoes into a passenger jet. Al Qaeda operatives blew up a Christian church in Pakistan, assassinated the newly named vice president in Afghanistan, and continued to make assassination attempts on U.S. soldiers overseas. A French freighter was bombed by Al Qaeda operatives; then, in October 2002, the island vacation area on Bali was rocked by a bomb explosion at a resort, killing 181 (mostly Australian) vacationers and employees. Adding to the terror—although not directly linked to the terrorist network—a team of snipers rained death on Virginia and Maryland citizens for almost a month. In March 2004, terrorists thought to be linked to Al Qaeda unleashed multiple bombs on Spanish trains, killing and wounding hundreds.

  Bush had promised to carry the war not only to the terrorists but also to “those who harbor them,” a clear threat to such Muslim states as Iran, Iraq, Sudan, and Yemen. Bush had made matters even plainer in his January 2002 State of the Union speech in which he referred to Iraq, Iran, and North Korea and other “states like these” as an “axis of evil” that had allied themselves with terrorists. It was abundantly clear which rogue states were next on the 9/11 hit list. Evidence that Saddam Hussein had links to the Al Qaeda terrorists, combined with continued reports that Iraq had violated United Nations resolutions requiring the nation to allow in weapons inspectors, made Hussein the next obvious target in the terror war.46 Soon, other nations were reminded that 9/11 was an attack on all nations that embraced freedom and democracy.

  The results of the first year and a half of the war on terror were impressive but difficult to fully evaluate, given the secretive nature of many of the important accomplishments. At minimum:

  Several hundred Al Qaeda members and suspected members were detained at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, for incarceration and interrogation as prisoners of war.

  Approximately two dozen of bin Laden’s top Al Qaeda leaders were dead or in custody.

  The Taliban were eradicated as the governing force in Afghanistan, and a new democratic government was installed. Schools previously closed to women were opened, and a spirit of liberty spread through a land that had known little.

  The FBI, the CIA, and allied intelligence agencies had successfully prevented another attack. Riady and José Padilla (the dirty bomber) had both been arrested before perpetrating any terrorist acts; several Al Qaeda cells (in Buffalo, Detroit, and the Pacific Northwest) were captured. In addition, British, Spanish, Moroccan, German, and other foreign intelligence networks had bagged several dozen Al Qaeda suspects.

  Millions of dollars in assets tied to Al Qaeda worldwide were frozen in U.S. and friendly banks.

  Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Ramzi Yousef’s uncle and the tactical mastermind behind the 9/11 plot, was captured.

  In 2004, a raid in Pakistan captured one of Al Qaeda’s top computer nerds—Muhammad Khan—whose treasure trove of information threw the doors open to capturing dozens of cell members and breaking up a planned attack on the United States.

  Many analysts suggested that the Bali bombing, the multiple attacks in Africa on Israeli embassies in late 2002, the Spanish train bombings in 2004, and bombings in Turkey and Saudi Arabia in 2004 indicated that Al Qaeda could no longer get through U.S. security and was therefore forced to strike softer targets. Of course, no one in the Bush administration or in the security agencies of America’s allies believed the war on terror was over, but important inroads had been made into enemy geographical and financial strongholds.

  In what some termed “the new normal,” post-9/11 America seemed shaken from more than a decade’s worth of doldrums into purpose and conviction. Perhaps it was fitting that in the 2001 World Series, played only a month after the towers fell, one of the teams was the New York Yankees. Then, at the quintessential American event, pro football’s Super Bowl contest, this time between St. Louis and New England, the championship was won by…the Patriots.

  Midterm Mayhem

  Going into the summer of 2002, the Democratic Senate, thanks to its one-vote margin provided by the defection of Jim Jeffords, had elevated South Dakota’s Senator Tom Daschle to the majority leader position. With his slim margin, Daschle successfully blocked Bush’s judicial nominees, held up drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), and stifled any attempt to cut taxes or otherwise stimulate the economy.

  Lacking a majority in the Senate, in the early part of 2002, Bush and his political adviser Karl Rove embarked on a brilliant campaign strategy for the 2002 midterm elections to try to reclaim control of the Senate. Whereas by historical standards, the GOP should have lost nearly two dozen House seats and two Senate seats, the Republicans actually gained seats in both houses of Congress and increased their state legislature gains by some 200 seats. The result was an unprecedented midterm election.47 The feat was even more impressive historically: because of the timing of the open Senate seats, the Republicans had to defend twenty, but the Democrats only had to defend fourteen. Realizing that mobilization for an Iraq war would take some time—especially since Al Qaeda was not entirely eliminated—Bush, Powell, Rumsfeld, and Rice made several policy speeches throughout the summer of 2002 emphasizing the threat posed by Iraq and its weapons of mass destruction. Democrats jumped at the bait, attacking the president for wanting to go it alone without the support of our allies or the United Nations. In fact, Bush intended all along to solicit support from important allies and to involve the UN, but he allowed the Democrats to stretch out their apparent opposition to the Iraq policy all summer, negating their advantage on some other election issues. In the fall, Bush brought a war resolution to Congress, forcing the Democrats—including Bush’s future opp
onent in the November general election, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts—to put themselves on record as supporting it. Bush then took his case to the UN in a powerful speech in which he offered not one shred of new evidence against Saddam Hussein; quite the contrary, he outlined eleven years of Iraqi violations of the UN’s own resolutions. It was a masterful performance to the extent that it forced the UN to either act against Iraq or admit impotence and become completely irrelevant. The UN gave the administration a new resolution, and even Syria voted yes.

  When the dust cleared on Election Day, the GOP had won a two-vote margin in the Senate and added to their majority in the House. The Republicans had made history. In virtually all of the victorious Republican senatorial campaigns, national security, in the form of the debate over the homeland security bill, provided much of the cushion. But other surprising signs of change were seen in the exit-polling data: candidates advocating privatization of Social Security won, and the prolife vote proved critical in many states. There was also evidence that Bush was eroding the New Deal coalition by siphoning off Hispanic and Jewish votes—not in overwhelming numbers, but enough to seriously damage the Democrats.48

  Unlike Reagan, Bush used his majority to push big government programs such as a prescription drug bill and education reform, signing the single biggest entitlement since the Great Society (the Medicaid prescription drug bill). He also rolled back some traditionally liberal bastions, such as in the area of abortion, where his executive orders actually restricted abortions on federal property and with federal funds. In 2003 he signed into law a ban on partial birth abortions, in which an abortionist partially delivers a late-term baby before killing it.49

  The “Axis of Evil”

  Bush, in his 2002 State of the Union message, listed Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as an “axis of evil” and as indirect allies of Al Qaeda and as state supporters of terrorism.

  Since 9/11, the administration had received information tying Saddam Hussein’s Iraq to Osama bin Laden’s terror network. Salman Pak, a training facility in Iraq, featured 737 jetliner fuselages that served little purpose except to give terrorists practice at taking over aircraft. The Iraqi foreign minister paid a visit to Czechoslovakia prior to 9/11, where, according to Czech sources, he met with hijacker Mohammad Atta. There were numerous other connections. Bush and his team decided that it was too dangerous to allow Al Qaeda to obtain chemical or biological weapons that virtually all nations had conceded were in Iraq. Clinton and Gore both had warned of the dangers of WMDs (weapons of mass destruction). A group of Democratic senators, including John Kerry, Carl Levin, and Ted Kennedy, urged Clinton to take action on Iraq’s WMD. Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, however, refused to allow United Nations inspection teams to search his facilities, and he defied fourteen UN resolutions. Bush gave him one last chance.

  After the “Axis of Evil” speech, Bush began a relatively long preparation period to ready the nation for war with Iraq if Hussein did not comply. Following the State of the Union, Bush, Secretary of State Powell, and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, along with British Prime Minister Tony Blair (who had received the same briefings) initiated a steady diplomatic assault on Iraq, painting for the U.S. and British public, and for the world community, a picture of a dictator who had weapons of mass destruction in his hands. These WMDs posed a particularly dangerous threat to American security because they could be easily brought into the United States by terrorists. Had one of the planes that hit the World Trade Center, for example, been carrying a small nuclear device or vials of VX gas, the death toll would have soared exponentially.

  In September 2002, in his address to the United Nations, Bush detailed dozens of violations by Iraq. Bush and Powell succeeded in obtaining a unanimous resolution from the UN Security Council (Resolution 1441) that required new vigorous inspections of Iraq and a full disclosure by Hussein of all of his WMD programs. Bush expected that the Iraqis would either not comply or feign compliance. Either way, the president planned to have a military option available if, within a reasonable time, Saddam did not demonstrate total transparency. More important, the administration used each roadblock Saddam threw up as another piece of evidence that the regime itself could not be trusted and had to be dispatched. UN weapons inspectors, meanwhile, reported violation after violation, yet desperately sought to avoid labeling Iraq’s noncompliance as such.

  Behind the scenes, France, Germany, and Russia—all with powerful economic stakes in maintaining Saddam in power—sought to derail American and British attempts to establish a final enforcement date of Resolution 1441. Building a larger alliance of nations than his father had in 1991—Bush termed it “the coalition of the willing”—on March 17, 2003, Bush gave Saddam and his sons forty-eight hours to leave Iraq or face war. Exactly three days later, the United States, having convinced the Iraqis that any new conflict would look much like the Gulf War (with a long, protracted bombing campaign called shock and awe), instead launched a single intensive air strike against a location where informants had said Saddam and his sons were. Saddam was not killed but instantly the Iraqi army began to behave as though it had lost all command and control.

  Coalition forces tore through Iraqi resistance even as pundits and military commentators (“embedded generals,” as Rumsfeld called them) complained that American forces were too light and lacked sufficient boots on the ground.50 Never have so many prognosticators and journalists been so wrong about so much: the “elite” Republican Guard, which supposedly would fight for every inch of Baghdad, collapsed without a fight.51 On April ninth, in just over two weeks of fighting, mostly against irregular troops, American armor swept through the desert and into the center of Baghdad.52 Once the local residents realized Saddam was indeed gone, large celebrations began, with Iraqis throwing flowers and cheering American soldiers with “Bush, Bush, Bush,” and “We love America!” That day, in what was sure to be one of the most memorable scenes of the new century, Iraqi civilians, aided by American trucks, tore down a massive statue of Saddam in the center of Baghdad, then proceeded to drag the head around town as people beat it with their shoes and spat on it.

  Nothing less than a complete transformation of war had been witnessed by the world, which saw twentieth-century mass tactics with the ancillary large casualties replaced by a technowar of unparalleled proportions. Merging MacArthur’s island-hopping concepts with the air superiority gained in the Gulf War, the United States and allied militaries added a new element of unprecedented levels of special forces operating inside Iraq, often within the cities themselves. Those special ops forces used laser targeting devices to focus precision bombs so finely that there was virtually no collateral damage to civilian buildings or noncombatants. Yet the precise targeting was so perfect that tanks hiding underneath bridges were blown up without damaging the bridge over them, and Saddam’s main command and control buildings were obliterated while shops next door remained open for business.

  Iraq was a demonstration of the “western way of war” at its pinnacle—or what one Middle Eastern commentator glumly labeled an example of “Mesopotamian show and tell.” The message was not lost on other regimes in the region or around the world. Libyan dictator Muammar al Qaddafi soon announced he was giving up his arsenal of WMD. It went unstated that he did not want the United States to have a Libyan version of show and tell. On June 28, an interim free Iraqi government took official control of the nation and Hussein entered pleas before a judge within a week. Within a period of two years, Bush had effectively cleaned out two major terrorist harbors, neutralized a third, and prompted internal democratic change in Saudi Arabia.

  Still, antiwar forces and many Democrats jumped at the chance to claim that the war on terror had failed, that Osama bin Laden was not in custody, and that the job in Afghanistan was unfinished. Terrorists flocked to Iraq after the invasion, and sporadic fighting continued well into 2004. But critics overlooked the fact that a free and democratic Iraq and Afghanistan had become the first true Arab democracies
in the Middle East, and that Al Qaeda now was being sucked into combat there, rather than on American soil.

  Although research teams failed to find the chemical and biological weapons that had resulted in the UN sanctions, many experts and Iraqi informants maintained that Saddam had transported the weapons of mass destruction out of the country just prior to hostilities. Many small amounts of biological and chemical weapons were nevertheless discovered in several locations, usually in artillery shells, indicating they had existed at one time. But whether the weapons were moved or were a massive deception by Saddam for some perverted pleasure of fooling the United States, one thing is clear: after 2003 he would never threaten any of his neighbors, or America, again. Equally important, Iraq would no longer be a training ground for hijackers.