Bush: Terror arrests are `stark reminder' - Critics say president has ignored real peril
LONDON TERROR PLOT: ANALYSIS
Bush: Terror arrests are `stark reminder' - Critics say president has ignored real peril
By Mark Silva
Washington Bureau
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
Published August 11, 2006
WASHINGTON -- The thwarting of what might have been a devastating terrorist attack has handed President Bush "a stark reminder that this nation is at war" as his party campaigns as the protector of national security and portrays Democrats as the party of "weakness."
Yet critics contend that nearly five years after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, Bush's ongoing attempts to portray the war on terror as a global conflict in which Iraq is the front line obscure the fact that the U.S. still is vulnerable to the same sort of terrorism as in 2001. They say Bush has taken his eye off the real threat to national security: Al Qaeda and related terrorist networks.
For Bush, any reminder of Sept. 11, such as the foiling of attacks on airliners flying from Britain to the United States, serves to bolster his case that the U.S. still is at war with a ruthless enemy.
The president, speaking in Wisconsin, called the plot "a stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom."
But for Bush's rivals, the foiled plot offered a way of reminding voters that the president is fighting the wrong war.
"The Iraq war has diverted our focus and more than $300 billion in resources from the war on terrorism and has created a rallying cry for international terrorists," said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). "This latest plot demonstrates the need for the Bush administration and the Congress to change course in Iraq."
The war in Iraq and the war against terrorism are likely to be potent factors in congressional races this fall. A CNN poll this week found that 60 percent of those questioned oppose the Iraq war.
The White House and the Republican National Committee were quick to capitalize on the defeat of Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) in his party's primary by an anti-war challenger as a sign that "extremists" are taking charge of the Democratic Party--"Defeat-ocrats," as an RNC e-mail to party members put it.
Vice President Dick Cheney spoke out for the White House:
"When we see the Democratic Party reject one of its own, a man they selected to be their vice presidential nominee just a few short years ago, it would seem to say a lot about the state the party is in today if that's becoming the dominant view of the Democratic Party, the basic, fundamental notion that somehow we can retreat behind our oceans and not be actively engaged in this conflict and be safe here at home, which clearly we know we won't--we can't be."
Yet experts in counterterrorism say that the administration's persistence in portraying the war in Iraq as the front line in the war on terror has left the U.S. more vulnerable to threats from either Osama bin Laden or others who model their attacks along Al Qaeda lines.
"The fact that we turned so quickly into preparations for Iraq allowed Al Qaeda remnants to escape from Afghanistan and begin the process of reconstitution," said Rand Beers, a former national security aide to Bush and previous presidents. "The violence that we face today is a direct result of that failure."
Beers, who left the White House and became a campaign adviser for Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) in the 2004 presidential election, had been Bush's senior director for combating terrorism and as an assistant secretary of state for Bush and President Bill Clinton. He also had served in counterterrorism on the National Security Council staffs of Clinton, Bush's father and President Ronald Reagan.
"The war we are fighting in Iraq today is mostly sectarian," Beers said. "Yes, the people we are fighting use terrorist tactics, suicide bombings and improvised explosive devices, kidnappings and killings of innocent people . . . but that doesn't make them part of the Islamic extremist jihadist movement that Al Qaeda represents."
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mdsilva@tribune.com
Bush: Terror arrests are `stark reminder' - Critics say president has ignored real peril
By Mark Silva
Washington Bureau
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
Published August 11, 2006
WASHINGTON -- The thwarting of what might have been a devastating terrorist attack has handed President Bush "a stark reminder that this nation is at war" as his party campaigns as the protector of national security and portrays Democrats as the party of "weakness."
Yet critics contend that nearly five years after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, Bush's ongoing attempts to portray the war on terror as a global conflict in which Iraq is the front line obscure the fact that the U.S. still is vulnerable to the same sort of terrorism as in 2001. They say Bush has taken his eye off the real threat to national security: Al Qaeda and related terrorist networks.
For Bush, any reminder of Sept. 11, such as the foiling of attacks on airliners flying from Britain to the United States, serves to bolster his case that the U.S. still is at war with a ruthless enemy.
The president, speaking in Wisconsin, called the plot "a stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom."
But for Bush's rivals, the foiled plot offered a way of reminding voters that the president is fighting the wrong war.
"The Iraq war has diverted our focus and more than $300 billion in resources from the war on terrorism and has created a rallying cry for international terrorists," said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). "This latest plot demonstrates the need for the Bush administration and the Congress to change course in Iraq."
The war in Iraq and the war against terrorism are likely to be potent factors in congressional races this fall. A CNN poll this week found that 60 percent of those questioned oppose the Iraq war.
The White House and the Republican National Committee were quick to capitalize on the defeat of Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) in his party's primary by an anti-war challenger as a sign that "extremists" are taking charge of the Democratic Party--"Defeat-ocrats," as an RNC e-mail to party members put it.
Vice President Dick Cheney spoke out for the White House:
"When we see the Democratic Party reject one of its own, a man they selected to be their vice presidential nominee just a few short years ago, it would seem to say a lot about the state the party is in today if that's becoming the dominant view of the Democratic Party, the basic, fundamental notion that somehow we can retreat behind our oceans and not be actively engaged in this conflict and be safe here at home, which clearly we know we won't--we can't be."
Yet experts in counterterrorism say that the administration's persistence in portraying the war in Iraq as the front line in the war on terror has left the U.S. more vulnerable to threats from either Osama bin Laden or others who model their attacks along Al Qaeda lines.
"The fact that we turned so quickly into preparations for Iraq allowed Al Qaeda remnants to escape from Afghanistan and begin the process of reconstitution," said Rand Beers, a former national security aide to Bush and previous presidents. "The violence that we face today is a direct result of that failure."
Beers, who left the White House and became a campaign adviser for Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) in the 2004 presidential election, had been Bush's senior director for combating terrorism and as an assistant secretary of state for Bush and President Bill Clinton. He also had served in counterterrorism on the National Security Council staffs of Clinton, Bush's father and President Ronald Reagan.
"The war we are fighting in Iraq today is mostly sectarian," Beers said. "Yes, the people we are fighting use terrorist tactics, suicide bombings and improvised explosive devices, kidnappings and killings of innocent people . . . but that doesn't make them part of the Islamic extremist jihadist movement that Al Qaeda represents."
----------
mdsilva@tribune.com
posted by Carlos T Mock at 10:19 AM
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