Abstract

More Blame for Bush

The editor argues that the campaign strategy of U.S. president George W. Bush may backfire if he is shown to have misled the country on the Iraq war and his administration's counterterrorism efforts prior to the attacks of September 11, 2001. Just as George W. Bush's election campaign was wrapping its candidate in the bloody flag of 9/11--using footage of the dead victims in an ad blitz that praised Bush's leadership and assailed presumptive Democratic nominee John Kerry as a weak-on-terrorism waffler--reality intruded. Its bearer was Richard Clarke, a longtime national security official who was White House counterterrorism coordinator for Clinton and, early on, for Bush. In his new book, he accuses the Bush crowd of neglecting the effort against Al Qaeda before September 11 and of misguiding the war on terrorism afterward. Clarke claims that Bush and his aides immediately wanted to use 9/11 as a pretext to bomb Iraq. But, he notes, there never was evidence that Iraq was in cahoots with Al Qaeda. And he maintains that the Administration misled the public regarding a link between 9/11 and the war on Iraq. Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill maintained that Bush was obsessed with attacking Iraq practically from Day One. And there were previous indications that the Administration was less than vigilant before 9/11. Bush has managed to escape blame for the government's performance on and before 9/11. The Administration, naturally, denies Clarke's complaints. That is why the work of the independent 9/11 commission is important. Bush, looking to win votes as a wartime President, wants to make 9/11 a campaign issue. Perhaps he ought to be careful what he wishes for.