U.S. Government

Just as the United States is struggling to deal with major postwar headaches in Iraq, its efforts to pacify Afghanistan appear to be unraveling, according to a new report by a key group of experts sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and the Asia Society.

How did the U.S. end up in the growing Iraq quagmire? "One theory is that the neocons, like many in power before them, tend to believe their own propaganda .... The degree to which they helped twist the intelligence about Iraq has become increasingly clear over the past few weeks, as angry intelligence professionals have taken their complaints to the press," journalist Jim Lobe writes.

Frustrated by survey results showing that "the bottom has fallen out of support for America in most of the Muslim world," Congress is asking the State Department to explain why U.S. image-enhancement efforts are failing. "When you consider that the State Department (DoS) has devoted more money and attention to public-diplomacy efforts in these regions in the past two years than anywhere since the Soviet Union's collapse, it's a sign that something's not working," writes Douglas Quenqua.

In George Orwell's 1984 "Ignorance Was Strength" for Big Brother's regime, and so it is for President Bush. "A third of the American public believes U.S. forces found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, according to a recent poll. And 22 percent said Iraq actually used chemical or biological weapons. Before the war, half of those polled in a survey said Iraqis were among the 19 hijackers on Sept. 11, 2001. But such weapons have not been found in Iraq, and were never used. Most of the Sept. 11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia. None were Iraqis. ...