Bush and GOP Defend White House Response
Democrats Are Accused of Playing Politics
By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 18, 2002; Page A01
President Bush forcefully responded yesterday to questions that his administration may have ignored warnings of terrorist threats before Sept. 11, as White House officials stepped up accusations that Democrats were playing politics with the security of the country.
In a Rose Garden ceremony, Bush denounced what he called a Washington climate "where second-guessing has become second nature," and then, measuring his words for emphasis, added: "Had I known that the enemy was going to use airplanes to kill on that fateful morning, I would have done everything in my power to protect the American people."
The president's comments, however, did little to quell a growing political fight over the revelation this week that Bush had been told during his Aug. 6 intelligence briefing that members of the al Qaeda terrorist network not only might be planning new attacks but also might resort to hijacking airplanes.
The rhetorical finger-pointing threatened to end months of bipartisan support for Bush's handling of the war on terrorism and signaled a more contentious debate in the coming months over whether there were intelligence failures before the Sept. 11 attacks.
Daschle, speaking to an Associated Press reporter, said the key question for Bush is: "Why didn't he know? If the information was made available, why was he kept in the dark? If the president of the United States doesn't have access to this kind of information, there's something wrong with the system."
Democrats angrily accused the administration of attempting to stifle political debate, pointing to comments Thursday night by Vice President Cheney and to criticism leveled by White House press secretary Ari Fleischer during his daily briefing.
"The last thing we need now is partisan bashing and political blaming and questioning of motives on either side," House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) said in an interview. He added: "If every time somebody asks a legitimate question it is seen as having a motive of political gamesmanship, we're never going to get to where we need to be."
But White House communications director Dan Bartlett defended the administration's decision to fire back at the Democrats. Charging that Democratic comments on Thursday "are exactly what our opponents, our enemies, want us to do," he said: "We felt it required a swift response, and we felt that the vice president was the appropriate person to do it."
At a dinner of the Conservative Party in New York on Thursday, Cheney warned against "incendiary" rhetoric and said the chorus of criticism from the Democrats was "thoroughly irresponsible and totally unworthy of national leaders in a time of war."
Yesterday, Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) described Cheney's remarks as "historically incorrect and threatening." In an interview, Kerry said: "I think he is overtly attempting to suggest that there is a patriot card to be played here, which I think is completely inappropriate. It's misplaced patriotism."
During his daily briefing at the White House, Fleischer singled out Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) for criticism, accusing her of attempting to divide the country by calling attention to a New York tabloid headline that angered the White House. Speaking from the floor of the Senate on Thursday, Clinton said: "I am simply here today . . . to seek answers to the questions being asked by my constituents. Questions raised by one of our newspapers in New York with the headline 'Bush knew.' The president knew what? My constituents would like to know the answers to that and many other questions. Not to blame the president or any other American. But just to know. To learn from our experience."
Yesterday, Fleischer said: "I have to say, with disappointment, that Mrs. Clinton, having seen that same headline, did not call the White House, did not ask if it was accurate or not. Instead, she immediately went to the floor of the Senate, and I'm sorry to say that she followed that headline and divided."
Clinton, at a news conference in New York, responded by saying it was "not only appropriate but responsible" to ask questions about what the government knew about threats before Sept. 11. "Nobody is more entitled to answers to some of these questions than the people of New York," she said. "And I take that responsibility very, very seriously. . . . I am not looking to point fingers or place blame on anybody."
Joe Lockhart, White House press secretary during the Clinton administration, charged that the Bush team was attempting to divert attention away from nettlesome questions about events preceding Sept. 11. "The strategy is to avoid answering questions about this by raising the political stakes so high that they think Democrats will be afraid to ask them," he said.
Bartlett said the goal of the administration is to prevent false impressions of what happened before Sept. 11 from taking hold in the public's mind. "Accusations that go unanswered are accusations that change perceptions and become reality over time," he said.
Another senior administration official said Cheney's pointed comments were intended to prevent congressional inquiries into possible intelligence breakdowns from becoming public spectacles in which "public grandstanding" results in revelations that damage national security. The official said Cheney feared that, "for purposes of politics, that you whip up a frenzy for the kind of hearings that would be very detrimental to the war effort and our ability to protect ourselves."
Fleischer also drew a rebuke yesterday from Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) after he pointed to public comments she had made in July 2001 about possible terrorist threats. He noted that she had remarked at the time that the administration was working to improve homeland security.
Feinstein, in a statement, said she was "very surprised by the tone" of Fleischer's comments. Far from vouching for the administration's preparedness last summer, she said, she was worried that the Bush team was moving too slowly.
Feinstein said she had contacted Cheney's office about her concerns but was told by Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, that it might be six months before he could review her material. "I told him I did not believe we had six months to wait," Feinstein said in the statement.
Cheney counselor Mary Matalin denied that the vice president's office had spurned Feinstein's inquiries, adding that her office was "flummoxed" by Feinstein's comments. "We do not blow off senators here," she said.
Matalin said that Cheney is "quite fond" of the senator, that her recommendations were welcomed and that, when Feinstein called in September, Libby "was quite honest in saying it will take awhile to work through putting in place a long-term system -- which is where we are today."
Whatever sense of goodwill still existed between the two parties appeared to evaporate with this latest controversy. Republicans charged Democrats with looking for any opportunity to undermine public confidence in the president. "I think they are salivating at the opportunity to try to bring the president down," said Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.) said he was offended "that so many liberal Democrats in Washington, including a bunch of floundering, would-be presidential candidates, are trying to score cheap partisan points by exploiting leaks about intelligence briefings."
A Republican congressional aide even accused Daschle and Gephardt of "being seduced" by conspiracy theories "in the left wing of the Democratic Party" that contend Bush knew about the terrorist attacks in advance and failed to stop them.
Gephardt said he was "mystified" by such criticism.
Staff writers Mike Allen and Helen Dewar contributed to this report.
© 2002 The Washington Post Company
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