Posted on 03/21/2003 3:02:50 PM PST by Joe Bonforte
WASHINGTON, March 21 — Toby Gati, a former State Department intelligence chief, was asked by her college-age daughter how the war unfolding in Iraq is different from Vietnam. For the first time, Ms. Gati said, she felt tongue-tied.
"My analytic mind takes me to a place my patriotic mind doesn't want to go," Ms. Gati said. For the moment, she says, she is hoping for the best.
Across Washington, residents woke up on Thursday to find the nation at war and felt themselves conflicted or unsettled in different ways. Throughout a day of drenching rain and dreary skies, they gave voice to feelings of anxiety and dread, as well as hope and even relief that the debate over Iraq was finally over.
The weather conspired to keep all but the heartiest indoors. A few hundred antiwar demonstrators paraded from Lafayette Park down city sidewalks, with soggy signs and a police escort.
The police presence was intense, as officials worried about the protesters and the potential for terrorist retaliation. Access to the White House was restricted by mid-afternoon. Policemen in yellow slickers rode bicycles in lazy loops in front of the Old Executive Office Building.
Companies and federal agencies sought new ways to augment security. One Washington firm sent out three progressively stiffer rules regarding its policy of presenting identification badges and escorting visitors.
In Congress, lawmakers cleared their calendars to focus on the war. They lined up to be interviewed by reporters and voiced support for American troops. "Every member of the United States Senate, I am confident, is talking about this issue to the people back home," said Rick Santorum, a Pennsylvania Republican.
At the same time, lawmakers were looking for ways to make themselves more secure. Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, said he was studying ways to restrict some of the public tours of the Capitol. The move dismayed critics who view the tours as symbolic of the building's open form of government.
Everywhere, it seemed, the business of Washington went on with the drone of CNN and other television news stations in the background.
Federal workers displayed a certain stoicism as on the job.
"We're plugging along," said Julianne Shinnick, who works in counter-narcotics at the State Department. "Right now, it's a TV war. Everybody is still doing their own thing."
Ms. Shinnick said she had become somewhat inured to worries about an attack. In less than two years, she noted, Washington workers had endured the Sept. 11 attack on the Pentagon, a sniper who stalked the suburbs, anthrax scares, and a protest this week by a disgruntled tobacco farmer who threatened to blow himself up.
"If something's going to happen, it's going to happen," she said.
Lobbyists, advocates and academics fretted that the war would eclipse their own projects indefinitely. "It's a huge displacement factor," said Heather Foote, a human rights worker who has spent recent years in the peace process for Congo.
In the communities around Washington, people continued to make minor preparations to better survive an attack. That included replenishing food stocks some had dug into during a punishing snow storm in February.
Parents of preschoolers in nearby Bethesda, Md. brought in sleeping bags or blankets for their toddlers and piled them up outside an administrator's office.
Churches offered to stay open late to allow members to reflect on the war and pray for loved ones after work.
"There's definitely a sense of anxiety with the events of the last 24 hours," said Monsignor W. Ronald Jameson at St. Matthew's Cathedral, who said he would arrange for after-hours services. "The people who come to our masses are very much in a mood of prayer."
In small ways, residents and visitors sought out gestures to demonstrate their patriotism and hope for the future.
Patti McCraw of Gaffney, S.C., and her daughter, Sally, visited the National Museum of American History. In the central foyer, they gazed at the enormous American flag that once draped the side of the Pentagon after Sept. 11.
"The mood is very different," said Ms. McCraw, who has visited the capital a dozen times in the past decade. "This is a very somber time for the U.S."
Ms. Gati, the former State Department intelligence chief, said she is still struggling to answer her daughter's question about Vietnam. Among the obvious differences, she said, is that this time there is "a real enemy."
But she faltered. "The thought of explaining that my country was making a major mistake was too much to bear."
Critics of the war, meanwhile, expressed anger and frustration that their opposition was not heeded by elected officials. Now, some said, they felt compelled to temper their criticism lest they seem unpatriotic.
"I'm very angry," said Tim Rogers, a massage therapist, who said he felt like he was holding his breath during the runup to war. "I feel like the world's getting smaller and smaller and we can't afford to alienate so many different countries."
1. I don't recall cheering North Vietnamese coming to greet us when we fought there.
2. We lost 50,000 in Vietnam. Iraq will probably be on the order of 1% of that.
3. Iraq is not being re-supplied by major enemies like Russia and China (at least not after hostilities have begun)
4. No Vietnamese ever committed acts of terrorism against us before the war began.
5. The Vietnamese leadership never possessed weapons of mass destruction, or had any nuclear program to build atomic weapons, or gassed their own people with chemicals.
6. The coalition to invade Iraq is several times larger than the coalition we assembled for Vietnam.
7. Our commanders are being told to do what it takes to win instead of trying to appease pacifists who can never be appeased without abject surrender.
Feel free to add your own. I'd like to send that idiotic State Department pacifist a nice, complete list, since she seems so confused.
Emotional and unthinking little children always want their way.
Ms. Gati is tongue tied because she is an idiot.
How about, "In Iraq, out military forces actually have a mission, and they are being given the tools and the permission to accomplish it."
Pessimist!
Another former State Dept. flunky who has made the proper decision to leave government service.
Hanoi's General Giap has repeatedly given credit to American protestors and our waffling leftists for his successful rape of South Vietnam (which continues to this very day).
Ms. Gati, you protested Vietnam until 1973, and after 1975 more than 1 million South Vietnamese died through torture, imprisonment, and famine. Simultaneously, Pol Pot was killing more than 2 million in Cambodia.
So the difference in removing Saddam is that 3 million people will not die.
Oh please. This guy caused a traffic jam, hardly life threatening
I just lived down the road from this women in a land of Democratic voting soccer mom. Everyone is going about their lives, supporting our troops, and thanking God Bush won.
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