Failing to Reassure

Thursday, May 31, 2007

By Dan Froomkin, Washington Post

May 24, 2007

Bush spoke yesterday at commencement exercises for the Coast Guard Academy. Here's the transcript.

Josh Meyer and Johanna Neuman write in the Los Angeles Times: "'I've often warned that if we fail in Iraq, the enemy will follow us home. Many ask, how do you know? Today, I'd like to share some information with you that attests to Al Qaeda's intentions,' Bush told the graduating cadets.

"He went on to list a series of plots, all previously described by U.S. authorities, and offered what he said was new information about the Bin Laden directive to [Iraq-based Abu Musab] Zarqawi. Bush did not say Wednesday whether the alleged cell ever became operational and, if so, what kind of plots it envisioned.

"But several lawmakers and counter-terrorism officials said they knew of no instances in which Zarqawi-led operatives had succeeded in entering the United States.

"'I've learned to be a little bit skeptical of the initial comments of the president on these things,' said Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee's terrorism subpanel. 'As the information comes out, we'll have to drill down to learn more about the specific threat -- whether there was anything to it, if there are any specifics.'

"Bush has disclosed intelligence secrets before. In 2005, he referred to 10 foiled terrorist plots in defense of his foreign policy. A year later, he divulged portions of a high-level intelligence report to rebut leaks in news reports about the effect of the Iraq war on Islamic radicalism worldwide. And earlier this year, an intelligence report with mixed findings about Iraq was released to back up Bush's new strategy of building up troop levels."

In fact, few if any of the threats Bush has described in the past have ever been convincingly documented. See, for instance, the "Where's the Evidence?" section of my recent article on NiemanWatchdog.org (where I am deputy editor).

Mark Silva writes in the Chicago Tribune: "President Bush, who repeatedly has declassified select snippets of U.S. intelligence to justify the war in Iraq, revealed new details Wednesday of an Al Qaeda attempt two years ago to coordinate attacks against the U.S. with operatives based in Iraq. . . .

"[T]he president's critics say that he is selectively using the disclosures.

"'We certainly don't need new declassified documents to understand the ongoing threats of Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden,' said Tim Roemer, a member of the Sept. 11 Commission. At the same time, he said, 'The president's focus on Iraq as a front line misstates the situation in terms of where the only threat is, and misdiagnoses what we need to do about it.'"

Deb Riechmann writes for the Associated Press: "President Bush portrayed the Iraq war as a battle between the U.S. and al-Qaida on Wednesday and shared nuggets of intelligence to contend Osama bin Laden was setting up a terrorist cell in Iraq to strike targets in America. . . .

"Critics of the war insist that U.S. troops are in the middle of fights among Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. . . .

"Rand Beers, national security adviser to John Kerry's 2004 Democratic presidential campaign, contended Wednesday that the Bush administration was releasing intelligence to buttress the argument that Iraq is the central front in the war on terrorism while a number of intelligence sources say the most recent attacks or planned attacks against the U.S. and its allies have originated in Pakistan instead.

"'Bin Laden is using Iraq to kill and demonize the United States while remaining secure and planning further operations in Pakistan,' Beers said."

Sheryl Gay Stolberg writes in the New York Times: "President Bush, addressing head-on the criticism that Iraq has turned into another Vietnam, argued Wednesday that withdrawing from Iraq would be dangerous because, unlike the enemy in Vietnam, terrorists in Iraq had the ability and desire to strike Americans at home. . . .

"The comments brought immediate criticism from Democrats and some counterterrorism experts, who assailed Mr. Bush for not acknowledging that the war itself helped open the door for terrorists to set up shop in Iraq. 'One day Bush tells us we are fighting in Iraq so that terrorists won't come here, then he releases intelligence that says terrorists trained in Iraq are coming here. Which is it?' said Richard A. Clarke, a former counterterrorism adviser to Mr. Bush and President Clinton, in a statement released by the National Security Network advocacy group. . . .

"Some argued that the speech, rather than building up Mr. Bush's case for the war, undermined it by confirming that Iraq is already a haven for terrorists.

"'The president today made the best case yet for why Congress must insist on a change of strategy in Iraq,' said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader. 'Intelligence analysts concluded long ago that Iraq has indeed become a training ground and recruiting poster for a new generation of terrorists.'"

Michael Abramowitz writes in The Washington Post: "Outside intelligence and terrorism experts described Bush's speech as a self-serving release of old and known information.

"'We now have several thousand al-Qaeda operatives in Iraq, and they are there because of that invasion,' said Daniel Benjamin, a Brookings Institution scholar and a Clinton White House counterterrorism official. He called the speech a 'fairly desperate effort to build some support for the mission in Iraq.'

"The U.S. intelligence community has long believed bin Laden and Zarqawi have wanted to export violence from Iraq, but after a Zarqawi-led bombing in Amman in 2005, there have been no more attacks. After the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Zarqawi resisted direction from bin Laden and his top aide, Ayman al-Zawahiri."

Abramowitz also reports that "Bush's speech was part of a White House effort in recent weeks to portray the violence in Iraq as primarily a function of al-Qaeda, deemphasizing the internal divisions within Iraq in the apparent hope of regaining political support for an endeavor that has become deeply unpopular with the U.S. public.

"Military officials also have repeatedly attributed attacks in Iraq to al-Qaeda or aligned groups while playing down the secular fighting that was the focus of a January National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq."

Does this mean that the administration has enlisted the Pentagon in an effort to skew and spin military reports for propaganda purposes? In light of independent reports that show sectarian violence in Iraq once again on the rise (see below), that's a legitimate concern that requires investigation.

Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball write for Newsweek: "The White House dipped into an old playbook today, declassifying secret intelligence about purported Al Qaeda terror threats to the United States, in order to bolster the president's case for continued funding for the war in Iraq. But in so doing, the Bush administration exposed itself once again to charges that it exaggerates and selectively uses intelligence to score political points....

"[T]he president's characterization of the intelligence may have been incomplete -- and also ignored contradictory reporting about what actually happened, according to U.S. counterterrorism officials with knowledge of the matter."

Catherine Dodge and Roger Runningen write for Bloomberg: "Thomas Mann, a presidential scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington, said the president is attempting to halt the erosion of public support for the war by drawing the link to the broader war against terrorism.

"'But his record of selective declassification of documents to bolster administration positions has understandably made the public deeply skeptical of such pronouncements,' Mann said in an e-mail."

Demetri Sevastopulo writes in the Financial Times: "General Joseph Hoar, the former head of US Central Command, said Mr Bush was returning to the tactic of instilling fear in the public by overstating the role of terrorists in Iraq. 'It is important to note that there was never one [an al-Qaeda element in Iraq] prior to our invasion,' said Gen Hoar....

"Frances Townsend, the White House counter-terrorism adviser, dismissed suggestions that the administration was playing politics by releasing the information. 'Frankly, if political advantage was the name of the game, we would have gotten it out a lot sooner,' she said."

David Jackson writes for USA Today: "In previous speeches, Bush and other administration officials have played down the threat from bin Laden, saying he has been on the run and that his organization is damaged. On March 13, 2002, Bush told reporters that 'terror is bigger than one person,' and that bin Laden was 'a person who's now been marginalized.'"

At today's press conference, Bush was asked: "What would you say to those who would argue that what we've done in Iraq is simply enhanced al Qaeda and made the situation worse?"

Instead of answering, he chose to ask his own question: "Oh, so in other words, the option would have been just let Saddam Hussein stay there. . . . And the answer is absolutely not. . . . See, that's the kind of attitude -- you said, okay, let's them live under a tyrant, and I -- I just don't agree."

For more background, see my March 19 column, They Won't Follow Us Home.

###