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Why Bush Didn't ApologizeIn his Arab TV interviews, the president refused to say the words Iraqis needed to hear: I'm sorry.

By Fred Kaplan
Updated Wednesday, May 5, 2004, at 6:09 PM ET
Bush on TV

It would be a surprise if President Bush's Arab TV interviews today went over well with Iraqi viewers. It would also be a surprise if he much cared.

His remarks seemed geared, for the most part, to American voters, who he knew would watch replays and excerpts a few hours later. For this audience, he pushed all the right buttons. For the other, Arab audience, he pushed a few of the right buttons, brushed up against some of the wrong ones, and deliberately avoided the crucial ones.

He scheduled the interviews—with Al Arabiya, a popular and independent Arabic network, and Al Hurra, a much-derided station owned by the U.S. government (but, pointedly, not with Al Jazeera)—to defuse the uproar over news of American soldiers torturing Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison. As everyone acknowledges, these revelations could irreversibly harm America's already-tarnished reputation in the Middle East.

Before Bush went on the air, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, profusely apologized on Arabic television, as did Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the commander in charge of detainee operations.

But one of several things that Bush did not do, when his turn came, was to apologize. He used the words "abhorrent," "appalled," "horrible," and said, "What took place does not represent the America that I know"—all good words, as far as they go. But he did not say, "I'm sorry."

It seems the president is allergic not just to the words but to the concept of responsibility that underlies them. To apologize would be to admit he'd made a mistake. And mistakes are forbidden in the Bush White House.

His resistance is particularly unfortunate here. An Iraqi who watched the two American generals apologize, and then watched the American president fail to, would certainly notice the difference—and might, understandably, wonder about the officers' significance and sincerity.

It is not just the press that's hung up on the S word. It has been claimed that Arabs like to hear it from those who have done wrong, but my guess is this would be true of any people who had been senselessly humiliated by the world's superpower. Adnan Pachachi, a leading member of the Iraqi governing council, politely hemmed and hawed when CNN asked him this afternoon about Bush's silence on the matter, but finally he replied, "An apology would have been useful."

Some of the president's comments were oddly dissonant. When the Al Hurra correspondent asked him if anyone would resign because of the prison horrors and if he still had confidence in Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Bush replied, "Of course, I've got confidence in the secretary of defense and in the commanders on the ground because they're doing great work on behalf of the Iraqi people."

Avoiding the question of whether anyone would lose their job was standard Bush practice—he never answers questions he can sidestep. But the reply he did give was strangely arrogant. It is not Bush's place, especially when speaking humbly on Iraqi television, to claim that American soldiers are doing "great work on behalf of the Iraqi people." That's for Iraqis to decide.

Similarly, this was not the forum for him to say, "America is a country of justice and law and freedom and treating people with respect." That's for Americans in Iraq to demonstrate, not for the president to assert.

Too often, the president began a sentence with the words, "People in Iraq must understand ..." or "The Iraqi people must understand …" or "People in the Middle East must understand … ." He probably didn't mean it but, to an Iraqi audience, these phrases may seem insistent, overbearing, even autocratic, coming from the man who is currently occupying their country.

Finally, some of his statements were false—appallingly so—and one can only hope not too many Iraqis noticed. For instance, he told Al Arabiya that the official investigation into the prison tortures would be "full" and "transparent." To Al Hurra, he added that even conducting an investigation "stands in stark contrast to life under Saddam Hussein. His trained torturers were not brought to justice under his regime."

And yet there was nothing "transparent" about this probe until the photographs and Gen. Taguba's report were leaked to CBS and The New Yorker. The report, though available on the Internet, is still classified Secret, even though, as Steven Aftergood reveals in today's edition of his Secrecy News newsletter, it is a violation of federal law to classify official probes of illegal conduct. There are many legitimate ways Bush might have contrasted America's open government with Saddam's dictatorship—but, alas, this was not one of them.

All this is a shame because some of Bush's comments were salutary. "American people are just as appalled as Iraqi people"—this strikes just the right chord, emphasizing our common humanity. When asked if the Marine pullback from Fallujah marked a U.S. defeat, he replied, "The strategy in Fallujah is to empower Iraqis to step up and take control of their security"—an excellent answer. Asked what he plans to do about the rebel cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, Bush said, "I think he ought to be dealt with by Iraqi citizens, who are getting tired of his occupying the holiest of holy sites"—another bull's eye. Some Iraqis who fear the return of colonialism may also have taken some comfort when Bush said, "Freedom does not have to look like America. Free societies will develop according to the cultures of the people in the regions and the Middle East."

But these topics were not what Bush went on Iraqi television to discuss, nor were they what Iraqis turned on their sets to hear. On the topic of the day and of many days to come, Bush—deliberately—stopped short.

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Fred Kaplan is Slate's "War Stories" columnist and the author of Daydream Believers: How a Few Grand Ideas Wrecked American Power. He can be reached at .
Photograph of people watching Bush on television by Nayef Hashlamoun/Reuters.
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Remarks from the Fray:

Well stated as an analysis of Bush's statements to the Arab world, but I wonder whether that was his primary intended audience. I suspect that Bush was speaking more to the American electorate through the Arab media. That is, I think Bush may have been more concerned with perceptions here in this country that he was "doing something" about the situation and defending our "good intentions" in Iraq, more so than communicating to Iraqis and others in the Arab world that he was actually confronting the issue of prisoner mistreatment. I confess I have not yet had a chance to see the statement, but your analysis would suggest to me that political damage control was more of a motive here than actual problem solving.

--Steve_R

(To reply, click here)


Liberals are amazing hung up on apologies and admissions of mistakes, and they are perplexed that, for Bush, sorry seems to be the hardest word. Why is it so hard for Bush to say he's sorry? The answer is pretty obvious, but it's not the answer that you'll get from those who are asking for that word to be spoken more often. A liberal might say something like "only when you can admit you made a mistake and say you are sorry can you change for the better" (or something equally ludicrous). That's not remotely related to why they want Bush to apologize or admit mistakes, and everyone knows it.

Imagine Bush had said to the Iraqi people "I'm sorry for what was done in those prisons." Can't you just see the headlines that would be blaring in the liberal media for weeks to come? And can't you just imagine what Fred Kaplan's column would have said? You can be sure that instead of writing an article about why Bush didn't say the words the Iraqis needed to hear, he'd have written an article about why Bush can apologize to the Iraqis but not to the victims of 9/11. And if Bush apologized to the victims of 9/11, they'd demand that he admit he erred with respect to Saddam's WMDs. And on and on (each time asking why if he apologized for X he refuses to apologize for Y).

--Engram

(To reply, click here)


…in the opening statements of his interview (with, I think, Al Arabiya -- though I'm 100% sure now which of the two interviews it was -- the second one, with Al Hurra, being with Bush's own newly set up Arab TV network whose homebase is in Virginia), Bush said not once but twice:

"The Iraqi people MUST understand...."

followed by affirmations that the American people are as shocked as the Iraqi people (a point which itself is a deflection - the Iraqi people don't need to hear nor even doubt, i suspect, that the American PEOPLE are also shocked -- it's the Bush administration they need to know is as shocked as they are.). The closest Bush was willing to go was to once say he thought it was 'abhorrent' ... I was unwilling to apologize -- even as his military commanders in the field today are apologizing. Why are THEY doing his apologizing for him??

Saying to ANYONE, "You must understand..." is a conscious or unconscious formulation which puts the onus on the listener, seeks to suggest that it is YOU, the listener, who has a problem here, YOU dont' fully understand something. This is the kind of formulation which BASIC, BASIC diplomatic language awareness should teach ANYONE is NOT the language of "winning friends and influencing people."

Now the Arab journalist has confirmed that indeed, in Arabic, such a phrase will be picked up very powerfully as a sign of Bush's "passing the buck" in a key way, suggesting that it is his listeners in Iraq who "must" change THEIR understanding of America.

The fact that this formulation came early on and thus framed everything he said which followed by having first communicated to listeners a sense that was designed (even unwittingly, I suspect) simply because Bush thinks this way -- he thinks it's everybody else who needs to change their worldview -- It captured EXACTLY what is most dangerous about Bush's non-diplomacy and inflammatory 'governance' -- He always things it's just a question of arm-wrestling others into seeing HIS view of the world... And nothing captures it more incisively than launching a talk to Iraqis with "You MUST understand..."

--zinya

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