Intel dispute festers as victory fades
ANALYSIS
By Dana Milbank
THE WASHINGTON POST
msnbc.com
July 17 — With surprising swiftness, an esoteric debate over 16 words in this year’s State of the Union address has changed the national political scene in recent days. Once-lifeless Democratic presidential candidates, buoyed by declining support for President Bush and his Iraq policy, talk of a full-blown scandal. They say the sentence in Bush’s speech declaring Saddam Hussein sought nuclear material in Africa — a charge the White House now admits was wrong or insufficiently documented — is symbolic of a president who misled a nation into a costlier-than-expected war by distorting intelligence.
THE WHITE HOUSE has been uncharacteristically flat-footed, responding with defensive and often contradictory explanations. “It is 16 words, and it has become an enormously overblown issue,” national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said on CNN on Sunday.
It is too early to know whether the controversy will fade or provide Democrats with political traction. For the moment at least, Bush has little to fear. The majority Republicans in the House and Senate, convinced the Democrats have overreacted, are nearly unanimous in opposing hearings on the matter. But that could change.
Political strategists say the controversy ultimately depends on events far away — in the streets and fields of Iraq. If Hussein is killed or captured, illegal weapons are found in Iraq and the near-daily attacks on U.S. soldiers subside, Democrats and Republicans agree the intelligence flap will be largely forgotten. If, however, Congress returns from its summer break in September with Hussein still at large, no discovery of weapons of mass destruction and continued attacks on U.S. troops, the issue will almost surely become the subject of congressional hearings and fodder for the presidential campaign.
‘WAITING FOR THE OTHER SHOE’
“People are waiting for the other shoe to drop,” said Bill Knapp, a Democratic strategist. “If we get [Hussein], a lot of sins could be forgiven. If we don’t get the guy, people will want answers.”
A senior Senate GOP aide expressed a similar view about the intelligence controversy. “This is a canary in the coal mine for what the administration could face if these other problems aren’t resolved,” he said. “If we go through a bad August, there will be immense pressure to have hearings up here in September.”
For Bush, the intelligence dispute increases pressure to locate Hussein and the forbidden weapons. It also increases pressure to protect U.S. troops, even if that means pulling them out before Iraq is stabilized-something Bush promised he would not do. Bush may have raised the stakes when he appeared on an aircraft carrier May 1 in front of a banner proclaiming “Mission Accomplished” and declared the end of major combat.
At the moment, developments in Iraq are discouraging. Another American was killed yesterday, by a rocket-propelled grenade, making him the 33rd U.S. soldier killed since Bush declared major combat over and the seventh since Bush two weeks ago said “bring ‘em on” to Iraqi militants. In addition, the pro-American mayor of Hadithah was assassinated yesterday, an Iraqi boy was killed in another attack on U.S. troops, and a missile was fired at a military plane.
THE SOLDIERS SPEAK
ABC’s “Good Morning America” showed soldiers from the Third Infantry Division in Iraq criticizing Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and questioning their mission. Minnesota Public Radio this week quoted Mary Kewatt, the aunt of a soldier killed in Iraq, saying: “President Bush made a comment a week ago, and he said ‘bring it on.’ Well, they brought it on, and now my nephew is dead.”
This has hurt Bush’s standing. A Washington Post/ABC News poll last week showed that support for Bush had dipped 9 percentage points in about two weeks, to 59 percent, mirroring a decline in support for his handling of the Iraq situation. A small majority for the first time found the level of casualties in Iraq unacceptable, while half thought the administration intentionally exaggerated evidence of Iraq’s weapons programs. Another poll released last week by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center found that 23 percent of Americans thought the military effort in Iraq was going very well, down from 61 percent in mid-April.
Fueling the controversy is the awakening of Democrats, who have a lot of pent-up frustration because they have not believed they could challenge Bush on foreign affairs since the Sept. 11 attacks. “President Bush should tell the truth-and get out of the way and let us find the truth-about the intelligence gap,” Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), a presidential candidate, said yesterday.
DEMOCRATS OVERREACHING?
Republicans say Democrats are dangerously overreaching — conservative publisher Bill Kristol says they have become the “anti-anti-Saddam party” — into criticizing the entire Iraq operation, which the public still supports. White House press secretary Scott McClellan parried the charge by reading earlier statements by Kerry and other Democrats attesting to the dangers posed by Hussein’s weapons. “The president has been very straightforward about this from the beginning,” McClellan said. “He laid out a very compelling case. . . . It was based on solid evidence, and it was based on a number of factors.”
Some Democrats think the damage to Bush could go well beyond the Iraq issue. One of Bush’s most valuable attributes has been his reputation for honesty and straight talking. But the controversy has caused the White House to appear slippery. In moments reminiscent of the Clinton presidency Bush and his aides have sought to parse phrases — they have called the disputed claim “technically accurate” because it was pinned on British intelligence — and they have said it is time to “move on,” the same phrase Clinton aides used. Also, a president who came to office criticizing those who would blame others for their problems has put responsibility on the CIA and the British.
PERILS FOR BUSH
“This is most dangerous for Bush in that it erodes two of his very real and durable political strengths: his perceived competence as commander in chief and his perceived honesty,” said Jim Jordan, Kerry’s campaign manager.
But some political professionals dispute that Bush will lose his honest appeal. Stephen Hess, a Brookings Institution scholar who wrote speeches for President Dwight Eisenhower, said presidents have always exaggerated facts to make their cases, and the public expects it. “These are understandable,” Hess said, noting that Bush retains “an umbilical cord to Main Street.”
One Democratic operative reluctantly agreed that the issue will not endure. Once Hussein and weapons of mass destruction are found in Iraq, “that is the spear in the heart of this whole argument.”
Of course, that depends on finding Hussein and the weapons. John Mueller, a specialist in war and public opinion at Ohio State University, said the public has little tolerance for casualties in a purely humanitarian operation. “If a year from now it’s still one American getting killed a day and there are still no weapons,” he said, Americans will ask, “What have we gotten ourselves into?” That is when Bush would be vulnerable to charges that he distorted intelligence. “It’s going to hurt the credibility of the administration,” Mueller said. |
