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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: lurqer who wrote (40365)	3/24/2004 2:18:34 AM
From: lurqer	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 89467

Blowing a Whistle on Bush's 9/11 Failures by Robert Scheer President Bush failed the country in its hour of greatest need, according to his administration's top anti-terrorism advisor during the crisis. Richard Clarke, who served every U.S. president since Ronald Reagan before resigning last May, has leveled a powerful charge that must be answered with something more than the usual White House smears. "Frankly, I find it outrageous that the president is running for reelection on the grounds that he's done such great things about terrorism," Clarke said on "60 Minutes." "He ignored it. He ignored terrorism for months, when maybe he could have done something to stop 9/11." Clarke's critique of Bush's leadership in a time of crisis is documented in a new book, "Against All Enemies," and will be amplified in testimony before the national commission on the 9/11 attacks. And just in time, too. Bush's "I am the war president" speeches have made it clear that terrorism will be the central theme in his campaign. This is not surprising, since opinion polls suggest that Americans are unimpressed with the administration except when it comes to its response to 9/11. Knowing this, the administration has launched a frontal attack on John Kerry's ability to fight the war on terror, which the president again defined Friday in apocalyptic terms. "There is no neutral ground, no neutral ground in the fight between civilization and terror, because there is no neutral ground between good and evil, freedom and slavery, and life and death," said Bush, implying that anybody who differs with the administration on the best way to fight terrorism is basically in the camp of the "evildoers." The appalling indifference of the incoming Bush team in 2001 to the clear and present danger presented by Osama bin Laden's organization has been noted before, perhaps most strikingly by former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, who reported that Bush and most of his Cabinet were obsessed with Iraq, not Al Qaeda, from the first day of the administration. This, despite the fact that Al Qaeda attacked the U.S. destroyer Cole just weeks before Bush's election, killing 17 U.S. sailors. The outgoing Clinton national security team said it pleaded with the incoming Bush team to make Al Qaeda its No. 1 security priority. "We had a terrorist organization that was going after us!" Clarke told CBS' Lesley Stahl. "That should have been the first item on the agenda. And it was pushed back and back and back for months." Clarke was never invited to brief the president before 9/11, even after he says he wrote a memo to national security advisor Condoleezza Rice "asking for, urgently — underlined urgently — a Cabinet-level meeting to deal with the impending Al Qaeda attack. And that urgent memo wasn't acted on." After more than 3,000 people were killed on 9/11 by 19 hijackers, none of whom were Iraqi, Clarke said, "The president dragged me into a room with a couple of other people, shut the door and said, 'I want you to find whether Iraq did this,' " Clarke told CBS. "Now, he never said, 'Make it up.' But the entire conversation left me in absolutely no doubt that George Bush wanted me to come back with a report that said Iraq did this. I said, 'Mr. President. We've done this before. We have been looking at this. We've looked at it with an open mind. There is no connection.' He came back at me and said, 'Iraq! Saddam! Find out if there's a connection.' And in a very intimidating way. I mean that we should come back with that answer. We wrote a report." That report, based on all available intelligence evidence and cleared by both the CIA and the FBI, showed no Iraq connection to 9/11. However, Clarke said, "We sent it up to the president and it got bounced by the national security advisor or deputy. It got bounced and sent back, saying, 'Wrong answer…. Do it again.' " If what Clarke says is true, the American people would be wise to bounce this president right out of office come November. commondreams.org lurqer

To: lurqer who wrote (40365)	3/24/2004 6:41:12 AM
From: Crimson Ghost	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

It's Hard to Say War Wasn't Worth It by Joan Vennochi WAS WAR with Iraq worth it? Even politicians opposed to the Iraq war from the start have a tough time answering the question with an unconditional no. It was Tim Russert's first question to Senator Edward M. Kennedy during the senator's recent appearance on "Meet the Press." Kennedy, who voted against the resolution authorizing war with Iraq, dodged the query the first time it was posed directly to him, as well as every variation thereafter. "You say, Senator, 'This thing was a fraud.' Do you believe that 573 Americans gave their lives for a fraud?" Russert probed ever more dramatically later in the interview. "Absolutely not," replied Kennedy, who went on to talk about walking past the memorial honoring soldiers who died in Vietnam and later referred to excerpts of letters from soldiers, now dead, printed in Sunday's New York Times. Oh, those letters. They make a reader realize the emptiness of endless punditry. Up against the real war in Iraq, the war of words at home is nothing but a petulant fight for power. It is excruciatingly sad to read the words of young men and women alive with plans, goals, and love one moment, dead the next. It would be sadder still to conclude that they died for nothing but a president's obsession, Congress's unwillingness to challenge him, and a country's collective ego. That is a large part of America's dilemma now. Even people opposed to the war from the start, who believe that the Bush administration led the country to war under false pretenses and Congress went along out of political cowardice, do not want to conclude that the war we fought and continue to fight has zero value. The country is rooting for something it could label a happy ending, with the grim knowledge that Baghdad is no Disney World. Without weapons of mass destruction anywhere to be found in Iraq or a pre-9/11 link to Al Qaeda, we are all left to grope for reasons, arguments, and hypotheses that explain why Americans are dying there: Iraq is a better place without Saddam Hussein. The world is a better place without Saddam Hussein. If Iraq embraces democracy and if a democratic Iraq somehow stabilizes the Middle East and oil prices, then the current disdain toward the United States from other parts of the world will be irrelevant. If this war somehow makes the world safer and more peaceful, then the families of those dead American soldiers could bring that knowledge along with their tears to their loved one's grave: You died for Iraqi freedom and world peace. On and on goes the national rationalizing, interrupted by car bombs that blow up lives and buildings in Iraq, a horrendous act of terrorism in Madrid, new fighting and political assassination in Afghanistan, and an Israeli strike that kills the founder of the militant group Hamas. Day by day the world feels less secure, not more secure. Should Americans go by the violent events of the moment or try to project beyond the latest deadly news to the promised land of the Bush administration's fantasies? The cost in lives and dollars is large and growing. Bush's deceptions and Congress's weakness in challenging them add up to another cost -- to democracy. Kennedy knows both contributed to the current mess. But he is committed to the presidential campaign of his fellow Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, who supported the war resolution. So he cannot publicly divvy up responsibility between the executive and legislative branches and stretch it where it belongs, across party lines. He can only continue to practice what passes for political debate in this country: pointing the finger of blame at one party, ignoring the lack of spine in his own party. Was war with Iraq worth it? Even politicians like Kennedy, who voted against the war, have a difficult time saying no. They are afraid such a direct response will be interpreted to mean that Americans died and are dying there for no good reason. That is not a message any political leader of either political party cares to send to Americans, especially to American soldiers and their families. © Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.