Ever since the ashen aftermath of Sept. 11 and America's declaration of war on terrorism, U.S. President George Bush appeared to be doing much better than his popular predecessor Bill Clinton in terms of keeping dissent within the nation's diplomatic ranks at bay. But on Feb. 24 John Brady Kiesling, a mild-mannered political counsellor at the U.S. embassy in Athens, Greece, resigned from his post, citing strong opposition to the President's policy on Iraq.
Kiesling quit with a public blast. In an impassioned letter penned to his boss, Secretary of State Collin Powell — and then leaked to the New York Times — the 45-year-old diplomat said the administration was involved in "a systematic distortion of intelligence" and "a systematic manipulation of public opinion" not seen since the days of Vietnam. The administration's "fervent pursuit of war with Iraq" was contrary not only to U.S. interests but to the nation's much-vaunted values. "Has 'oderint dum metuant '(meaning 'let them hate so long as they fear') really become our motto" Kiesling asked, recalling a favourite phrase of Caligula, the schizophrenic Roman emperor who ruled with a passion for sadism.
The State Department's beleaguered spokesman, Richard Boucher expressed regret at the envoy's resignation. The U.S. embassy in Athens, meantime, insisted that Kiesling's decision was "due to personal reasons."
""The only hope is that President Bush realizes that the political cost of a catastrophic decision would be so high that he should find an alternative."
Kiesling says he began to grow worried last September when the war-drums began beating about Iraq. "I started drafting a letter to send to the State Department's dissent channel," he says, "but then, I gave up, watching things deteriorate." Particularly troublesome, he recalls, was the spread of disproportionate terror and confusion in the public mind, linking al-Qaeda to the regime in Iraq. "There is no connection," he told TIME in his first telephone interview since his return to the United States as a simple citizen on March 6. "It's very dangerous and foolish to take down Saddam [Hussein]. Even if that happens, it doesn't mean that tragic events as those of Sept. 11 can't happen."
By mid-February, Keisling was drafting his resignation letter, becoming the first American diplomat to quit over Iraq. The resignation was the first since 1994, when five State Department officials walked out of their jobs in exasperation of the Clinton administration's moot policy in the Balkans.
Kiesling, a Berkley University-trained archaeologist, has served in U.S. missions from Tel Aviv to Casablanca to Yerevan. He has a history of speaking his mind: in 1994 he won the American Foreign Service Association award for "constructive dissent." He was one of the so-called Balkan Dozen of diplomats who accused the Clinton administration of dithering over whether to actively intervene to stop Serbian-led slaughters in Bosnia. Now, ironically, Keisling accuses Bush of being too bullish.
He knows his resignation won't put the breaks on the administration's war plans. "I have no such illusion," he says. "The only hope is that President Bush realizes that the political cost of a catastrophic decision would be so high that he should find an alternative."
Kiesling says he may take up public speaking gigs, hoping to inspire greater public debate on Iraq. He also intends to write more, travel back to Greece, Europe's bedrock of Anti-Americanism, to look for a job. And what if bombs and cruise missiles start falling over Baghgad? Well, says Kiesling in patriotic tone, "Then, the talking ends. You just can't criticize an administration when war is happening."
