Baird Watcher Phan Nguyen in Olympia's own Works in Progress:
(Photo: Brian Baird in Iraq. The view of Iraq looks great from here! Iraq summer trip, August 11, 2007. From left to right: Gen. Petraeus, Rep. Baird, Rep. Hall (R-TX), Ambassador Crocker, and Rep. Shays (R-CT).)
Representative Brian Baird of Washington’s 3rd Congressional District has been in the media spotlight ever since returning from a trip to Iraq in August and proclaiming both his support for the troop “surge” and his rejection of a timeline for withdrawal. He has made several media appearances, including MSNBC, CNN, NPR, PBS, and conservative talk radio, where he is portrayed as a stauch antiwar Congressman who made a complete turnaround after he witnessed the reality on the ground of Iraq. But what’s missing from this picture?
How many Iraq trips?
Baird has staked his authority on trips he made to Iraq. On NPR’s All Thing Considered, Baird claimed to have been “on the ground several times now.” In an interview with Willamette Week, Baird explained, “There’s no substitute to being on the ground. I recognize that in a few days it would be presumptuous to believe one’s an expert. But I’ve been there five times in the last five years, twice in the last four months.” However, this is deliberately misleading.
Baird has only visited Iraq twice, once from May 21–22 and once from August 11–12. Both happened this year. Each time, he was in Iraq overnight for just one night, meaning that each trip was approximately 1–1/2 days long, or a total of about 3 days in Iraq over a period of two trips.
What Baird means when he says he’s “been there five times” is that he has been to the Middle East five times. The other times refer to places in the Middle East outside of Iraq. In 2006, Baird traveled to Egypt to attend the World Economic Forum. In 2002 and perhaps early 2003, Baird had also traveled to Jordan and Egypt, as well as to Israel on an AIPAC-sponsored itinerary. (When contacted, Baird’s office did not have the full details or exact dates on these trips.)
This means that when he boasts that he has been “to the region five times,” only two of those trips were actually to Iraq. A third trip was for the World Economic Forum. And the other two trips to the Middle East region occurred before the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Thus his reliance on his “on the ground experience” is exaggerated, and has led to misleading claims such as in this interview with the conservative magazine National Review: “Having been there, in the region five times and in Iraq itself two times in just the last four months, I think it’s pretty clear to me that a premature withdrawal would lead to greater chaos in the country and that that chaos would expand within the region.”
We are supposed to believe that a trip to Egypt before the Iraq war began somehow convinced Baird that the US should not withdraw from Iraq now. As well, his claim that he had been “in Iraq itself two times in just the last four months,” is misleading, since those were the only two times he had ever been in Iraq. This cannot be dismissed as a simple misstep but is rather a talking point that Baird has repeatedly employed and is central to his arguments.
For instance, Baird made the same claims with Wolf Blitzer on CNN:
My belief is, after having been there a couple of times in just four—in the last four months—and five times to the region, is that if we talk about premature withdrawal, it actually makes it more difficult, not less difficult, to resolve the political situation.
(Photo at right by Robert Whitlock: Brian Baird at the Olympia town hall meeting, September 17, 2007)His unwillingness to be more straightforward about his time in Iraq led Blitzer to finally ask, “How long were you in Iraq that you could come up with that conclusion?” Baird again chose to be vague or at least circumlocuitous: “Well, I’ve been to Iraq on—for two days but in the surrounding region for a total of eight this time five days just four months ago.” Whatever that means.
This ambiguity led many to misinterpret the length and times he spent in Iraq. Willamette Week mistakenly reported that Baird spent “eight full days in volatile Iraq.” Tucker Carlson called Baird a “credible voice” because he had “been to the region three times.” The Stranger misquoted him as saying, “I’ve been to Iraq five times,” or else Baird had managed to confuse himself. The Columbian of Vancouver published an editorial praising Baird and claiming he had “been to Iraq five times.”
We should conclude from this that if Baird is not confident enough to be candid about the length of time he spent in Iraq, he should not rely on it to stake his authority on matters relating to the Iraq occupation.
Was there a conversion?
It has been taken for granted that Baird was a consistent opponent of the war and that his conversion occurred only after his August trip to Iraq, what the Daily Astorian called a “Baghdad epiphany.” This assumption is partly Baird’s fault, as he constantly reminds people that he had “voted against the war from the outset.” In interviews and meetings, Baird has neither confirmed nor denied that his viewpoint significantly changed after his last trip to Iraq, leaving questions of that nature unadressed.
Yet the record shows a more gradual and subtle position that has never been a strong antiwar stance. A few days after the start of the war, Baird voted for H.Con.Res. 104, “Expressing the Support and Appreciation of the Nation for the President and the Members of the Armed Forces Who are Participating in Operation Iraqi Freedom.” In its “whereas” clauses, the resolution justified regime change, implied that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, and provided support for the war. Further it resolved to express:
“unequivocal support and appreciation…to the President as Commander-in-Chief for his firm leadership and decisive action in the conduct of military operations in Iraq as part of the on-going Global War on Terrorism.”
Following criticism from his constituents for voting for the resolution, Baird issued a public statement that the resolution was necessary to “support the troops.” Although the resolution did express support for “members of the United States Armed Forces serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom, who are carrying out their missions with excellence, patriotism, and bravery,” along with support for their families, Baird made no attempts to justify the other 80% of the resolution which repeated pro-war lies, distortion, and rhetoric, and that congratulated Bush for executing the war.
(At left: US Military and "Coalition" Deaths in Iraq. data compiled and graphic created by Phan Nguyen)This resolution was the first clear indication that Baird’s stance was never simply anti-war. More accurately, Baird took the position that he would oppose the war before it began, but once it began, he would offer his support. That is, his opposition to the war has always been opposition to the war having ever started, and never a blanket opposition to the continuing war and occupation.
This stance was reiterated this August on NPR: “ I still believe the invasion itself was a horrific mistake, but once we’re there, we have to do what we can to try to make the best of this.”
To Tucker Carlson: “I believe, frankly, that the invasion of Iraq was one of the greatest foreign policy mistakes in the country, and I still believe that. However, once we had made that commitment and were on the ground, I pretty steadfastly opposed a timeline for withdrawal.”
If by the term “antiwar” we refer to someone who was opposed to starting a war and occupation in Iraq, then Baird could possibly qualify. But if we now mean that antiwar refers to someone who wants the war and occupation to end, Baird would not qualify.
Although Baird has often left accusaions of a sudden conversion go unchallenged, he has been explicit a few times, such as in an interview with the Grays Harbor’s Daily World, in which he said his stance “is not quite as big of a shift as some would have you believe.” He also said, “Though I believe going in was a terrible mistake, I have steadfastly resisted pulling funds or withdrawing troops. I’ve never agreed to that for the first couple of years.”
Baird was and still is opposed to the war beginning, but that is different from advocating or working towards an end to the war.
The impression that Baird underwent a 180-degree turn is based on media exaggeration, exploitation in pro-war circles, and false expectations from his antiwar constituents that he was already on their side. Baird is also personally to blame for this misimpression, as he begins every interview by saying how we was initially opposed to the war and belives that the war on Iraq was “one of the greatest foreign policy mistakes in history of this country,” as if that determined his current position on the war.
The only significant change from before his trips to Iraq to after is that he has found the authority to be more vocal about his personal stance, rather than concealing it.
The CODEL trendBaird’s two brief trips to Iraq are part of a popular trend among Congress members to assert both authority on their individual Iraq positions and to score political points. So far more than three-quarters of the Senate and more than half of the House have visited Iraq. More than half of those have visited Iraq multiple times.
In this last August recess, 38 members of Congress traveled to Iraq, including Baird, in ten separate congressional delegations, or CODELs, for short.
The VIP tickets to Iraq have become so essential that even if a congress member thought it was just a dog-and-pony show, they had to go there if only to say, “I’ve been there, and it’s a dog-and-pony show.”
These CODEL visits usually last one or two days and involve meetings with Gen. Petraeus, Ambassador Crocker, and other US officials, several PowerPoint presentations, meetings with Iraqi officials, quick dashes outside of the Green Zone to visit a military base, perhaps a marketplace, and a couple of tribal leaders, as well as visiting US troops to show support.
The record number of trips to Iraq held by a Congress member may belong Rep. Chris Shays (R-CT), who has traveled to Iraq a whopping 18 times since the start of the war. Shays was a consistent proponent of the war and occupation until after his 14th trip to Iraq in the fall of 2006, at which point he advocated a timetable for withdrawal. The difference between his 14th trip and his previous ones was that he was facing a tight electoral race against an antiwar opponent and decided to shift his position accordingly. Following his re-election, Shays resumed a strong pro-war stance, most recently visiting Iraq with Brian Baird and declaring the troop surge “a huge success!”
Measuring progressAfter a grand total of three days in Iraq, Baird declared that progress is being made. In fact, Baird was already citing progress after his first one-and-a-half-day trip to Iraq in May. With such short trips, Baird is only able to offer anecdotes to support his notion of progress.
His favorite anecdote is the story of an unnamed colonel that goes as follows:
“I met with a colonel for US special forces who buried his own men, who looked me in the eye to say he lost 65 men. Buried 65 of his own men. But now he doesn’t take incoming fire anymore. All they used to do, day after day, is take incoming fire. That’s not happening anymore. The facts on the ground are changing.”
Applying a single anecdote to demonstrate that “the facts on the ground are changing” is invalid when the numbers fail to support the anecdote. Although this particular colonel and his soldiers are experiencing fewer attacks, Baird does not explain how the anecdote relates to Iraq as a whole. Examining the fatality count for US soldiers demonstrates that there is no drop in the fatality rate. Instead there has been a rise in fatalities for every month in 2007, compared to the same month in 2006.
Relying on localized anecdotes lead to a false picture of the country. When Baird visited Iraq in May and saw progress being made, it also happened to be the deadliest month for US soldiers since November 2004, and it was the deadliest month for Iraqi civilians for the year. When Baird returned in August and saw more progress, it was the second deadliest month for Iraqi civilians for the year, according to AP.
It is quite revealing that Baird is unable to cite any progress in Iraq other than through specific anecdotes. Yet he has confidently made statements attesting to progress wihtout bothering to qualify them:
“The situation on the ground in Iraq is improving in multiple and important ways”
“I am convinced by the evidence that the situation has at long last begun to change substantially for the better”
“The people, strategies and facts on the ground have changed for the better.”
If we look at the numbers, however, which Baird never bothers to cite, we would see that the number of US deaths have remained high, the number of civilian deaths rose in August, the number of refugees have increased dramatically in 2007, and with no signs of refugees returning. Progress, then, is relegated to personal anecdotes.
The Iranian “threat”Aside from progress, Baird also cites an Iranian threat as a rationale for staying in Iraq.
Baird acts puzzled that his constituents don’t take the Iranian threat as seriously as he does:
“Like the other night [at the town hall meeting in Vancouver], I talk about the threat Iran poses, everybody stands up and says, ‘Oh, yeah, we heard that about Iraq,’ “ Baird said. “Time out: The U.N. Atomic Energy Commission believes Iran is a significant nuclear threat. They didn’t say Iraq was. That’s a real difference. And if we pretend that because Bush lied once, every other threat isn’t real — that’s dangerous.”
However, this is untrue. IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei has recently stressed that, “Iran does not constitute a certain and immediate threat for the international community.” By referencing an imaginary IAEA statement, Baird inadvertently drew a comparison to Iraq. In 2002, George Bush cited a nonexistent IAEA report that Saddam had been “six months away from developing a weapon” in order to present a case to invade Iraq.
Promoting the fear of the unknownBaird has also employed an array hypothetical “what-ifs” in order to make his case that withdrawal would be unthinkable.
At the September 21 Olympia town hall meeting, Baird asked skeptical constituents what they “envision would happen” if the US withdrew from Iraq. The premise was that the worst imaginable things would happen. While no one can say for sure what would happen, we know that it ceratinly wouldn’t be what Baird envisions.
Speaking to the Olympian editorial board, Baird envisioned:
“What happens to you and you and you and me morally if we withdraw and there’s wholesale slaughter? What happens if a Shi’a theocracy takes over and progressive independent women who are currently in the region are suddenly all forced into burqas and they can’t go to school and -- and they’re stoned to death for learning to read? What happens if we allow that?”
Such hypotheses draw into question what Baird really learned from visiting Iraq and just how much of his current stance could possibly have been informed by his trips to the Middle East.
The burqa is a phenomenon specific to the Afghanistan region and does not appear in the Middle East. Meanwhile the premise that women would be stoned to death for learning to read is more likely to happen in wahhabi of Saudi Arabia, which is not a Shiite theocracy.
The most prevalent cases of women being stoned to death in Iraq are occurring in Iraqi Kurdistan, and are conducted as honor killings, not as Shiite precepts.
A recently publicized honor killing was that of Du’a Khalil a Yezidi Kurd killed by other Yezidi Kurds, not Muslims, and are derived from cultural practices, not religious. In response to Khalil’s killing, Kurdish women led protests calling on the government to do more to prevent such killings. Unsurprisingly, the US military occupation has done little to prevent honor killings.
Here, Baird was drawing on stereotypes of Muslims, along with his ignorance of distinctions between Shi’a Islam and Salafism/Wahhabism.
Another farfetched scenario that Baird offered was the idea that if the US withdrew, Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia and Jaish al-Mahdi could become empowered and would “then begin operations on the United States. Is that worth an American life to try and prevent that? I believe it is.”
To address Baird’s rhetorical question appropriately, one could just as well ask if it was worth an American life to prevent the Sandinistas from invading Texas, as the Reagan administration intimated to justify its war on Nicaragua. Baird provides no evidence that AQM or Jaish al-Mahdi has any designs to invade the United States, other than Bush-style fearmongering.
This fearmongering was also evoked in his discussion with the Olympian editorial board, where Baird asked how the situation would improve if the US withdrew. An editorial board member replied, “It stops Americans from being killed,” to which Baird ominously replied, “Temporarily.”
Baird has also constantly evoked the vision of a “bloodbath” that would occur if the US withdrew. Considering that the number of “coalition” soldiers, civilian contractors, and mercenaries killed is well over 5,000 and more than 30,000 wounded, and that close to a million Iraqis have been killed and more than 4 million Iraqis have been displaced—and considering that all of this has happened under the current US military occupation of Iraq, what, then, is Brian Baird’s definition of a “bloodbath?”
Political risk?
The idea that Baird’s vocal stance on Iraq is a political liability only goes so far. His campaign has over $800,000 in cash on hand. As a five-term incumbent, he currently has no Republican competitor. Disgruntled Democrats and Greens are looking for a viable candidate to oppose him, but they face a daunting task to find someone for 2008.
Courage is his only assetCuriously, there are a large number of people who find themselves disagreeing with Baird but respecting him for being vocal and taking a stand.
One of the strangest quotes came from state Rep. Brendan Williams, who said, “I disagree with him on the war 100 percent, and I support him 100 percent.” Olympia mayor Mark Foutch said, “I’ve always admired Brian, thought he was a courageous person, and he’s proving it again,” The Longview Daily News proclaimed that Baird was “show[ing] backbone.” Dwight Pelz, chairman of the Democratic Party of Washington, said, “ I respect his courage.... Many people don’t agree with Brian, but I respect him as a person of principle who calls it as he sees it.”
The Daily Astorian claimed that Baird was proving himself to be a “leader.” Baird’s “Baghdad epiphany introduces the novel possibility that it is grounded in genuine courage and principle.”
Baird has emerged as the archetypal man who lives by his principles, who sticks to his guns despite the overwhelming disapproval of the majority, thus showing both bravery and integrity.
Yet it should be asked whether such respect would be applicable to George Bush, who is sticking to his guns and insisting on staying the course despite his low approval ratings. And should the same respect be accorded to Reed Walters, the prosecutor in the case of the Jena 6, who has remained stubborn despite international outcry and who refuses to acknowledge any racial compenent in the prosecutions? Should Walters be praised for his intractability?
In a position where his decisions help determine the fate of countless Iraqis and US soldiers, Baird is being rewarded not for making the best choices, but for showing “resolve” and “sportsmanship” in making the wrong decisions.
On September 17, Baird spoke in DC at a dinner for the right-wing pro-war group Vets for Freedom, where he shared the stage with prominent neocon Frederick Kagan and General (ret.) Jack Keane, the authors of the troop “surge.” There, Baird gave a speech that was apparently more aggressive than the tone used in his recent town hall meetings. Baird reportedly lambasted Congress members for not “shutting the hell up” and listening to Petraeus and Crocker’s testimonies. Referring to his political career, he proclaimed, “I can get another job; I can’t get another country,” which was received with a standing ovation.
Baird may have found some new friends in DC, but when it comes to the Iraq war, the 3rd Congressional District has lost any representation.
