http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=64326

100 Mistakes for the President to Choose From

May 3, 2004

During a prime time press conference on April 13, President Bush was
asked to name a mistake that he has made since taking office and what
he has learned from it. Bush, who was unable to answer the question,
admitted "maybe I'm not as quick on my feet as I should be in coming
up with [a mistake]." But weeks later, Bush still hasn't answered the
question. In the interest of assisting the President with this
surprisingly difficult task we've compiled this list of 100 mistakes
he has made since taking office:

Iraq

1. Failing to build a real international coalition prior to the
Iraq invasion, forcing the US to shoulder the full cost and
consequences of the war.

2. Approving the demobilization of the Iraqi Army in May, 2003 –
bypassing the Joint Chiefs of Staff and reversing an earlier position,
the President left hundreds of thousands of armed Iraqis disgruntled
and unemployed, contributing significantly to the massive security
problems American troops have faced during occupation.

3. Not equipping troops in Iraq with adequate body armor or
armored HUMVEES.

4. Ignoring the advice Gen. Eric Shinseki regarding the need for
more troops in Iraq – now Bush is belatedly adding troops, having
allowed the security situation to deteriorate in exactly the way
Shinseki said it would if there were not enough troops.

5. Ignoring plans drawn up by the Army War College and other
war-planning agencies, which predicted most of the worst security and
infrastructure problems America faced in the early days of the Iraq
occupation.

6. Making a case for war which ignored intelligence that there
were no Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq.

7. Deriding "nation-building" during the 2000 debates, then
engaging American troops in one of the most explicit instances of
nation building in American history.

8. Predicting along with others in his administration that US
troops would be greeted as liberators in Iraq.

9. Predicting Iraq would pay for its own reconstruction.

10. Wildly underestimating the cost of the war.

11. Trusting Ahmed Chalabi, who has dismissed faulty intelligence
he provided the President as necessary for getting the Americans to
topple Saddam.

12. Disbanding the Sunni Baathist managers responsible for Iraq's
water, electricity, sewer system and all the other critical parts of
that country's infrastructure.

13. Failing to give UN weapons inspectors enough time to certify
if weapons existed in Iraq.

14. Including discredited intelligence concerning Nigerian Yellow
Cake in his 2003 State of the Union.

15. Announcing that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended"
aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003, below a "Mission
Accomplished" banner – more U.S. soldiers have died in combat since
Bush's announcement than before it.

16. Awarding a multi-billion dollar contract to Halliburton in
Iraq, which then repeatedly overcharged the government and served
troops dirty food.

17. Refusing to cede any control of Post-invasion Iraq to the
international community, meaning reconstruction has received limited
aid from European allies or the U.N.

18. Failing to convince NATO allies why invading Iraq was important.

19. Having no real plan for the occupation of Iraq.

20. Limiting bidding on Iraq construction projects to "coalition
partners," unnecessarily alienating important allies France, Germany
and Russia.

21. Diverting $700 million into Iraq invasion planning without
informing Congress.

22. Shutting down an Iraqi newspaper for "inciting violence" – the
move, which led in short order to street fighting in Fallujah, incited
more violence than the newspaper ever had.

23. Telling Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan about plans to go to
war with Iraq before Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Counterterrorism

24. Allowing several members of the Bin Laden family to leave the
country just days after 9/11, some of them without being questioned by
the FBI.

25. Focusing on missile defense at the expense of counterterrorism
prior to 9/11.

26. Thinking al Qaeda could not attack without state sponsors, and
ignoring evidence of a growing threat unassociated with "rogue states"
like Iraq or North Korea.

27. Threatening to veto the Homeland Security department – The
President now concedes such a department "provides the ability for our
agencies to coordinate better and to work together better than it was
before."

28. Opposing the creation of the September 11th commission, which
the President now expects "to contain important recommendations for
preventing future attacks."

29. Denying documents to the 9/11 commission, only relenting after
the commissioners threatened a subpoena.

30. Failing to pay more attention to an August 6, 2001 PDB
entitled "Bin laden Determined to Attack in U.S."

31. Repeatedly ignoring warnings of terrorists planning to use
aircraft before 9/11.

32. Appointing the ultra-secretive Henry Kissinger to head the
9/11 commission – Kissinger stepped down weeks later due to conflicts
of interest.

33. Asking for testimony before the 9/11 commission be limited to
one hour, a position from which the president later backtracked.

34. Not allowing national Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice to
testify before the 9/11 commission – Bush changed his mind as pressure
mounted.

35. Cutting an FBI request for counterterrorism funds by
two-thirds after 9/11.

36. Telling Americans there was a link between Saddam Hussein and
al Qaeda.

37. Failing to adequately secure the nation's nuclear weapons labs.

38. Not feeling a sense of urgency about terrorism or al Qaeda
before 9/11.

Afghanistan

39. Reducing resources and troop levels in Afghanistan and out
before it was fully secure.

40. Not providing security in Afghanistan outside of Kabul,
leaving nearly 80% of the Afghan population unprotected in areas
controlled by Feudal warlords and local militias.

41. Committing inadequate resources for the reconstruction of
Afghanistan.

42. Counting too heavily on locally trained troops to fill the
void in Afghanistan once U.S. forces were relocated to Iraq.

43. Not committing US ground troops to the capture of Osama Bin
Laden, when he was cornered in the Tora Bora region of
Afghanistan in November, 2001.

44. Allowing opium production to resume on a massive scale after
the ouster of the Taliban.

Weapons of Mass Destruction

45. Opposing an independent inquiry into the intelligence failures
surrounding WMD – later, upon signing off on just such a commission,
Bush claimed he was "determined to make sure that American
intelligence is as accurate as possible for every challenge in the
future."

46. Saying: "We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found
biological laboratories."

47. Trusting intelligence gathered by Vice President Cheney's and
Secretary Rumsfeld's "Office of Special Plans."

48. Spending $6.5 billion on nuclear weapons this year to develop
new nuclear weapons this year – 50% more in real dollars than the
average during the cold war – while shortchanging the troops on body
armor.

Foreign Policy

49. Ignoring the importance of the Middle East peace process,
which has deteriorated with little oversight or strategy evident in
the region.

50. Siding with China in February, 2004 against a democratic
referenda proposed by Taiwan, a notable shift from an earlier pledge
to stand with "oppressed peoples until the day of their freedom
finally arrives."

51. Undermining the War on Terrorism by preemptively invading Iraq.

52. Failing to develop a specific plan for dealing with North Korea.

53. Abandoning the United States' traditional role as an
evenhanded negotiator in the Middle East peace process.

Economic

54. Signing a report endorsing outsourcing with thousands of
American workers having their jobs shipped overseas.

55. Instituting steel tariffs deemed illegal by the World Trade
Organization – Bush repealed them 20-months later when the European
Union pledged to impose retaliatory sanctions on up to $2.2 billion in
exports from the United States.

56. Promoting economic policies that failed to create new jobs.

57. Promoting economic policies that failed to help small businesses

58. Pledging a "jobs and growth" package would create 1,836,000
new jobs by the end of 2003 and 5.5 million new jobs by 2004—so far
the president has fallen 1,615,000 jobs short of the mark.

59. Running up a foreign deficit of "such record-breaking
proportions that it threatens the financial stability of the global
economy."

60. Issuing inaccurate budget forecasts accompanying proposals to
reduce the deficit, omitting the continued costs of Iraq, Afghanistan
and elements of Homeland Security.

61. Claiming his 2003 tax cut would give 23 million small business
owners an average tax cut of $2,042 when "nearly four out of every
five tax filers (79%) with small business income would receive less"
than that amount.

62. Passing tax cuts for the wealthy while falsely claiming
"people in the 10 percent bracket" were benefiting most."

63. Passing successive tax cuts largely responsible for turning a
projected surplus of $5 trillion into a projected deficit of $4.3
trillion.

64. Moving to strip millions of overtime pay.

65. Not enforcing corporate tax laws.

66. Backing down from a plan to make CEOs more accountable when
"the corporate crowd" protested.

67. Not lobbying oil cartels to change their mind about cutting
oil production.

68. Passing tax cuts weighted heavily to help the wealthy.

69. Moving to allow greater media consolidation.

70. Nominating a notorious proponent of outsourcing, Anthony F.
Raimondo, to be the new manufacturing Czar—Raimondo withdrew his name
days later amidst a flurry of harsh criticism.

71. Ignoring calls to extend unemployment benefits with long-term
unemployment reaching a twenty-year high

72. Threatening to veto pension legislation that would give
companies much needed temporary relief.

Education

73. Under-funding No Child Left Behind

74. Breaking his campaign pledge to increase the size of Pell grants.

75. Signing off on an FY 2005 budget proposing the smallest
increase in education funding in nine years.

76. Under-funding the Title I Program, specifically targeted for
disadvantaged kids, by $7.2 billion.

77. Freezing Teacher Quality State Grants, cutting off training
opportunities for about 30,000 teachers, and leaving 92,000 less

teachers trained than the president called for in his own No Child
Left Behind bill.

78. Freezing funding for English language training programs.

79. Freezing funding for after school programs, potentially
eliminating 50,000 children from after-school programs.

Health

80. Not leveling with Americans about the cost of Medicare – the
president told Congress his new Medicare bill would cost $400 billion
over ten years despite conclusions by his own analysts the bill would
cost upwards of $500 billion over that period.

81. Silencing Medicare actuary Richard Foster when his estimates
for the Administration's Medicare bill were too high.

82. Letting business associate David Halbert, who owns a company
which stands to make millions from new discount drug cards, craft key
elements of the new Medicare bill.

83. Underfunding health care for troops and veterans.

84. Allowing loopholes to persist in Mad-Cow regulations.

85. Relaxing food labeling restrictions on health claims.

86. Falsely claiming the restrictions on stem cell research would
not hamper medical progress.

87. Reducing action against improper drug advertising by 80 percent.

Environment

88. Abandoning the Kyoto Treaty without offering an alternative
for reducing greenhouse effect.

89. Counting on a voluntary program to reduce emissions of harmful
gasses—so far only a tiny fraction of American companies have signed up.

90. Gutting clean air standards for aging power plants.

91. Weakening energy efficiency standards.

92. Relaxing dumping standards for mountaintop mining, and opening
the Florida Everglades and Oregon's Siskiyou National Forest to mining.

93. Lifting protection for more than 200 million acres of public land.

94. Limiting public challenges to logging projects and increased
logging in protected areas, including Alaska's Tongass National Forest.

95. Weakening environmental standards for snowmobiles and other
off-road vehicles while pushing for exemptions for air pollution
proposals for five categories of industrial facilities.

96. Opposing legislation that would require greater fuel
efficiency for passenger cars.

97. Reducing inspections, penalties for violations, and
prosecution of environmental crimes.

98. Misleading the public about the Washington mad cow case and
the likely effectiveness of USDA's weak testing program.

99. Withdrawing public information on chemical plant dangers,
previously used to hold facilities accountable for safety improvements.

Other

100. Cutting grants to state and local governments in FY 2005,
forcing states to make massive cuts in job training, education,
housing and environment.