Tough talk over Bush's handling of threats
Tough talk over Bush's handling of threats
By Brian Knowlton
Copyright by The International Herald Tribune
Published: September 24, 2006
WASHINGTON The fierce debate among American political leaders over responsibility and blame for the war in Iraq and the broader fight against terrorism took a new turn Sunday as a major U.S. intelligence report said the war in Iraq had increased Islamic extremist recruitment and worsened the threat of terrorism.
The report, a National Intelligence Estimate that is meant to reflect the analyses of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, "should put the final nail in the coffin for President Bush's phony argument about the Iraq war," Senator Edward Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, said in a statement.
Details of the report were reported Sunday by The New York Times. The classified document attributes a larger role to the Iraq war in producing Islamic militants than have recent White House documents on terrorism. (Page 4.)
The White House, apparently concerned that reports of the intelligence assessment could undercut one of its most fundamental arguments for staying in Iraq, quickly issued a three-page statement seeking to rebut points in press accounts of the report.
The statement pointed out that Bush had often described terrorist groups as increasingly decentralized and dispersed.
It noted that bin Laden himself had declared the war in Iraq to be the "most serious issue today for the whole world."
The divisiveness over the war in Iraq loomed large in reactions Sunday. Senator Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican who is chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said that "my feeling is the war in Iraq has intensified Islamic fundamentalism and radicalism," though he added on CNN that "nobody seems to have an answer."
But the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, Republican of Tennessee, echoed language often used by President George W. Bush when he said that "either we are going to be fighting this battle, this war, overseas or it's going to be right here in this country."
The strong words illustrated the extraordinary sensitivity that terrorism - and a stormy political blame game about who has done more, or should have done more, or would do more, to fight it - continues to stir in the United States.
The intensity of feelings blew into the open Sunday when Fox-TV broadcast an interview taped with Bill Clinton, the former president.
When the interviewer, Chris Wallace, asked Clinton why he had not done more to pursue Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, Clinton became angry.
Eyes flashing, he leaned forward to tap the clipboard in Wallace's lap and blamed "conservative Republicans" for trying to scare Americans and make terror an issue for political ends.
Summing up the political stakes in this election year the commentator Arianna Huffington said Sunday on CNN, "There is a real battle going on to define who is going to keep America safer."
The White House, in its statement regarding the National Intelligence Estimate, did not specifically deny the notion that the Iraq invasion had produced a rise in terrorists' numbers. Instead, it said that terrorists had shown through their own remarks that "they are driven by numerous reasons," including a purported desire to establish an Islamic empire encompassing all current and former Muslim lands.
In the interview on Fox, which is known as a politically conservative network, Clinton accused Wallace of luring him to the interview under "false pretenses" - with a promise to spend more time talking about a climate- change initiative.
Wallace seemed startled by Clinton's intensity, then denied the charge.
When Wallace asked whether the U.S. withdrawal from Somalia in 1993 had heartened terrorists, Clinton said: "You falsely accused me of giving aid and comfort to bin Laden because of what happened in Somalia; no one knew bin Laden existed then."
He said that some of the conservatives who criticize him today were among the lawmakers who demanded an immediate withdrawal from Mogadishu.
Clinton noted that he has rarely criticized Bush on his fight against terrorism. But then he suggested that the Bush administration had lacked a focus on terrorism in its time in office before the Sept. 11 attacks. "They had eight months to try," Clinton said. "They did not try."
The former president's furious reply may have had something to do with his concern about how history would portray him.
But amid an increasingly sharp national debate, it probably also had to do with a recent flap over an ABC-TV special that, while claiming to be based on the national commission report on Sept. 11, contained scenes unsupported by the report that suggested that Clinton and his aides missed opportunities to attack Al Qaeda.
ABC, under fire, ultimately changed some scenes.
Clinton accused Republicans of trying to raise Americans' fears as an election tactic. "We're going to win a lot of seats if the American people aren't afraid," he said, referring to the Democratic Party.
But the intelligence report gave Democrats new ammunition for their criticisms of the Iraq war.
When, on CNN, a former Republican secretary of state, Alexander Haig, belittled the report as the product of liberal journalists, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Richard Holbrooke, said he found astonishing the notion that the nation's entire intelligence apparatus might be doing the bidding of Democrats.
National Intelligence Estimates are approved by John Negroponte, director of national intelligence. Their conclusions are based on analyses from all the spy agencies.
Asked about the report, some Republicans argued that, in any case, the United States now had little choice about how to proceed in Iraq.
"We need to prevail," Senator John McCain of Arizona said on CBS-TV, "and if we fail, our problems would be much more complicated."
Many Democrats have said they believed that Senator John Kerry was far too slow in his 2004 presidential campaign to rebut criticism of his military and security record. They are now trying to fight back more intently.
Clinton pointed out that nine current Democratic candidates for House seats are veterans of the Iraq war.
Meanwhile, the presence in Washington over the weekend of two of Bush's chief allies, President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan and President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, produced a sharp reminder of the challenges in marshaling a common front against terrorism.
When Musharraf visited Bush at the White House on Friday, reporters wanted to know about his comment, being broadcast Sunday in a "60 Minutes" interview, that a U.S. official had threatened in late 2001 to bomb Pakistan "back to the Stone Age" if it did not cooperate with the U.S. war against the Taliban.
Musharraf and Karzai, meanwhile, have assailed each other for security failures along their common border.
Musharraf said recently that "the problem lies in Afghanistan," and Karzai sharply criticized a new accord calling for the Pakistani Army to turn over its hunt for Al Qaeda to tribal groups in the border area.
Bush plans to bring the two together at a dinner on Wednesday, reportedly to seek reconciliation.
Clinton, in his interview, said that he had done his best to get bin Laden.
"I authorized the CIA to get groups together to try to kill him," he said. "I worked hard to try to kill him."
"At least I tried," he added.
By Brian Knowlton
Copyright by The International Herald Tribune
Published: September 24, 2006
WASHINGTON The fierce debate among American political leaders over responsibility and blame for the war in Iraq and the broader fight against terrorism took a new turn Sunday as a major U.S. intelligence report said the war in Iraq had increased Islamic extremist recruitment and worsened the threat of terrorism.
The report, a National Intelligence Estimate that is meant to reflect the analyses of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, "should put the final nail in the coffin for President Bush's phony argument about the Iraq war," Senator Edward Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, said in a statement.
Details of the report were reported Sunday by The New York Times. The classified document attributes a larger role to the Iraq war in producing Islamic militants than have recent White House documents on terrorism. (Page 4.)
The White House, apparently concerned that reports of the intelligence assessment could undercut one of its most fundamental arguments for staying in Iraq, quickly issued a three-page statement seeking to rebut points in press accounts of the report.
The statement pointed out that Bush had often described terrorist groups as increasingly decentralized and dispersed.
It noted that bin Laden himself had declared the war in Iraq to be the "most serious issue today for the whole world."
The divisiveness over the war in Iraq loomed large in reactions Sunday. Senator Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican who is chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said that "my feeling is the war in Iraq has intensified Islamic fundamentalism and radicalism," though he added on CNN that "nobody seems to have an answer."
But the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, Republican of Tennessee, echoed language often used by President George W. Bush when he said that "either we are going to be fighting this battle, this war, overseas or it's going to be right here in this country."
The strong words illustrated the extraordinary sensitivity that terrorism - and a stormy political blame game about who has done more, or should have done more, or would do more, to fight it - continues to stir in the United States.
The intensity of feelings blew into the open Sunday when Fox-TV broadcast an interview taped with Bill Clinton, the former president.
When the interviewer, Chris Wallace, asked Clinton why he had not done more to pursue Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, Clinton became angry.
Eyes flashing, he leaned forward to tap the clipboard in Wallace's lap and blamed "conservative Republicans" for trying to scare Americans and make terror an issue for political ends.
Summing up the political stakes in this election year the commentator Arianna Huffington said Sunday on CNN, "There is a real battle going on to define who is going to keep America safer."
The White House, in its statement regarding the National Intelligence Estimate, did not specifically deny the notion that the Iraq invasion had produced a rise in terrorists' numbers. Instead, it said that terrorists had shown through their own remarks that "they are driven by numerous reasons," including a purported desire to establish an Islamic empire encompassing all current and former Muslim lands.
In the interview on Fox, which is known as a politically conservative network, Clinton accused Wallace of luring him to the interview under "false pretenses" - with a promise to spend more time talking about a climate- change initiative.
Wallace seemed startled by Clinton's intensity, then denied the charge.
When Wallace asked whether the U.S. withdrawal from Somalia in 1993 had heartened terrorists, Clinton said: "You falsely accused me of giving aid and comfort to bin Laden because of what happened in Somalia; no one knew bin Laden existed then."
He said that some of the conservatives who criticize him today were among the lawmakers who demanded an immediate withdrawal from Mogadishu.
Clinton noted that he has rarely criticized Bush on his fight against terrorism. But then he suggested that the Bush administration had lacked a focus on terrorism in its time in office before the Sept. 11 attacks. "They had eight months to try," Clinton said. "They did not try."
The former president's furious reply may have had something to do with his concern about how history would portray him.
But amid an increasingly sharp national debate, it probably also had to do with a recent flap over an ABC-TV special that, while claiming to be based on the national commission report on Sept. 11, contained scenes unsupported by the report that suggested that Clinton and his aides missed opportunities to attack Al Qaeda.
ABC, under fire, ultimately changed some scenes.
Clinton accused Republicans of trying to raise Americans' fears as an election tactic. "We're going to win a lot of seats if the American people aren't afraid," he said, referring to the Democratic Party.
But the intelligence report gave Democrats new ammunition for their criticisms of the Iraq war.
When, on CNN, a former Republican secretary of state, Alexander Haig, belittled the report as the product of liberal journalists, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Richard Holbrooke, said he found astonishing the notion that the nation's entire intelligence apparatus might be doing the bidding of Democrats.
National Intelligence Estimates are approved by John Negroponte, director of national intelligence. Their conclusions are based on analyses from all the spy agencies.
Asked about the report, some Republicans argued that, in any case, the United States now had little choice about how to proceed in Iraq.
"We need to prevail," Senator John McCain of Arizona said on CBS-TV, "and if we fail, our problems would be much more complicated."
Many Democrats have said they believed that Senator John Kerry was far too slow in his 2004 presidential campaign to rebut criticism of his military and security record. They are now trying to fight back more intently.
Clinton pointed out that nine current Democratic candidates for House seats are veterans of the Iraq war.
Meanwhile, the presence in Washington over the weekend of two of Bush's chief allies, President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan and President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, produced a sharp reminder of the challenges in marshaling a common front against terrorism.
When Musharraf visited Bush at the White House on Friday, reporters wanted to know about his comment, being broadcast Sunday in a "60 Minutes" interview, that a U.S. official had threatened in late 2001 to bomb Pakistan "back to the Stone Age" if it did not cooperate with the U.S. war against the Taliban.
Musharraf and Karzai, meanwhile, have assailed each other for security failures along their common border.
Musharraf said recently that "the problem lies in Afghanistan," and Karzai sharply criticized a new accord calling for the Pakistani Army to turn over its hunt for Al Qaeda to tribal groups in the border area.
Bush plans to bring the two together at a dinner on Wednesday, reportedly to seek reconciliation.
Clinton, in his interview, said that he had done his best to get bin Laden.
"I authorized the CIA to get groups together to try to kill him," he said. "I worked hard to try to kill him."
"At least I tried," he added.
posted by Carlos T Mock @ 10:21 AM
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