Broader commiseration and deeper troop cuts

Re “A Not-Always-Diplomatic Gathering,” Jan. 6

If the Bush administration had been less high on the smell of oil profits and less arrogant about the superiority of American values, meetings with former secretaries of State and Defense -- before launching an invasion of Iraq -- might have been constructive. Now they offer little more than a wider forum for commiseration. Chagrined officials must show us that assignment of responsibility and corrective action within our democracy are still possible, even after voters failed to do so in 2004. At least Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld may not have to live as long with his regrets as his Vietnam counterpart, Robert McNamara.

BOB CARLSON

Garden Grove

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Re “The politics of troop cuts,” Opinion, Jan. 2

Leslie H. Gelb’s prediction that President Bush will resist political pressure for deep troop cuts in Iraq is naive and betrays a poor understanding of his presidency.

As insiders have documented, Bush has no understanding of or interest in foreign affairs. His one overriding objective is to ensure Republican Party domination of national politics, and he therefore will make whatever cuts are deemed necessary by Karl Rove and his pollsters.

The cuts will be packaged just as Gelb describes -- as a means of weakening the insurgency and eliminating Iraqi dependence on U.S. troops. Like Nixon before him, Bush will declare victory and then pray that Iraq doesn’t collapse until after the 2008 elections.

HOWARD F. DANIELS

Encino