Yesteday, the Washington Post ran a lengthy, critical report on the Bush administration's planning for the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Naturally, Scott McClellan tried to dismiss the piece away, just as he has done in the past when his boss has been confronted with any kind of criticism. Below are some of the damning excerpts, with commentary. All typeface in bold is my emphasis
Bush emphasizes force of will -- determination to prosecute the enemy, and equally to stand up to allies who disapprove. Bush and his aides most often deflect questions about recent global polls that have found sharply rising anti-U.S. sentiment in Arab and Muslim countries and in Europe, but one of them addressed it in a recent interview. Speaking for the president by White House arrangement, but declining to be identified, a high-ranking national security official said of the hostility detected in surveys: "I don't think it matters. It's about keeping the country safe, and I don't think that matters."
The last quote is especially revealing. While it fits in well with the tough-guy act, 'we do what's right, not what's popular' facade, the quote is deeply indicative of criminal negligence. It's also perhaps the worst attitude one could take when ostensibly fighting a "war on terror." Could rising hostility in “Arab and Muslim” countries foreshadow negative consequences for the United States? Not according to this administration. Nope, they “don’t think it matters.” They’re wrong.
I’ve said it before, but here it is again: The most effective anti-terrorism strategy is to address the motives and underlying causes of terrorism. This also happens to be the most difficult strategy. Bombing poverty-stricken countries, while perhaps cathartic, is at best ineffective and and worst counter-productive. This country is not willling to address these issues anytime soon.
More significant than the bottom line, government analysts said, is the trend. Of the al Qaeda leaders accounted for, eight were killed or captured by the end of 2002. Five followed in 2003 -- notably Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the principal planner of the Sept. 11 attack. This year only one more name -- Hassan Ghul, a senior courier captured infiltrating Iraq -- could be crossed off.
Here, there’s too much of a tendency to parrot White House claims. Anyone who follows this kind of thing in any sort of passive way knows the name Khalid Sheik Mohammed. What’s not known is who this guy really is. Amid much fanfare and swooshing Fox News “Breaking Story” clip-art, this guy was captured in the Spring of 2003. The White House released a photo of Mohammad looking exhausted and broken, then claimed that the guy in the photo “masterminded” the 9/11 attack. Oh, really? Why do you say that? (Deafening Silence) For all I know, this guy could have masterminded the attack. Or he might have been masterminding a pizza hut. The public hasn't been given any other information about this guy, just official, Ari Fleisher pronouncements. Now the Washington Post repeats it as gospel.
Ditto for Hassan Ghul. A “senior courier,” eh? We have one of those where I work. He’s in charge of the copy machine. Sorry, he “masterminds” the copy machine. Ghul is another guy whose picture was trotted out to the press and seized on by uberhacks like Bill Safire, who claimed that this interloper seized ex post facto in Iraq was definitive proof of a “longstanding” Al-Qaeda/Iraq nexus. Again, the public hasn’t been told anything other than White House spin.
Although some of the administration's assertions are too broadly stated to measure, some are not. Townsend, Bush's homeland security and counterterrorism adviser, said "three-quarters" of "the known al Qaeda leaders on 9/11" were dead or in custody. Asked to elaborate, she said she would have to consult a list. White House spokeswoman Erin Healy referred follow-up questions to the FBI. Spokesmen for the FBI, the National Security Council and the CIA did not respond to multiple telephone calls and e-mails.
Effective debunking job here. But why be so coy? This is White House propaganda. Full stop. Let's call it that.
Townsend, the White House terrorism and homeland security adviser, gives two framed courtroom sketches from a former life a place of honor on her West Wing wall. The color portraits, from 1990, depict her as lead prosecutor in a case against New York's Gambino crime family. When she took her White House job in May, she told the Associated Press that the transition from organized crime to terrorism "actually turns out not to be that big a leap." She added, "Really in many ways you're talking about a group with a command-and-control structure."
Oh, really? I thought we weren’t supposed to acknowledge these kinds of similarities. I thought treating terrorism as a “law enforcement” issue was weak, or a flip-flop or wait, no, too liberal or something like that? Nevermind. And didn’t we hear at the beginning of this article that al-qaeda is not, in fact, “command and control”?
Jihadists (sic) "metastasized into a lot of little cancers in a lot of different countries," Gordon said recently. They formed "groups, operating under the terms of a movement, who don't have to rely on al Qaeda itself for funding, for training or for authority. [They operate] at a level that doesn't require as many people, doesn't require them to be as well-trained, and it's going to be damned hard to get in front of that."
Doesn't sound like command and control to me. That's because it isn't. Incidentally, the very phrase "command and control" was often used to describe the Soviet economy (a generally correct term in this instance.) To my ear, Townsend's use of this term sounds like that a pathetic attempt to graft the language of yesterday's public enemy onto today's. Just speculating.
The brutal challenge for U.S. intelligence, Sageman said, is that "you don't know who's going to be a terrorist" anymore. Citing the 15 men who killed 190 passengers on March 11 in synchronized bombings of the Spanish rail system, he said "if you had gone to those guys in Madrid six months prior, they'd say 'We're not terrorists,' and they weren't. Madrid took like five weeks from inception."
Interesting. This would fly in the face of Bush's lump of terrorism fallacy (i.e. no new 'terrorists' created as a by-product of 'fighting terrorism'.
New jihadists (sic) can acquire much of the know-how they need, Sageman and his counterparts still in government said, in al Qaeda's Saudi-published magazines, Al Baatar and the Voice of Jihad, available online.
al-qaeda has a magazine? This sounds fishy. At the very least, it sounds like a stretch.
Most officials interviewed said Bush has not devised an answer to a problem then-CIA Director George J. Tenet identified publicly on Feb. 11, 2003 -- "the numbers of societies and peoples excluded from the benefits of an expanding global economy, where the daily lot is hunger, disease, and displacement -- and that produce large populations of disaffected youth who are prime recruits for our extremist foes."
The president and his most influential advisers, many officials said, do not see those factors -- or U.S. policy overseas -- as primary contributors to the terrorism threat. Bush's explanation, in private and public, is that terrorists hate America for its freedom.
Sageman, who supports some of Bush's approach, said that analysis is "nonsense, complete nonsense
Wow. That right there is the reason these guys need to go. If that won’t convince you, nothing will. Even though I’ve heard Bush use the “terrorists hate us for our freedom” line dozens of times, I’m shocked to read that that is his explanation in private as well. He really does belive his own bullshit. Get rid of him now. Absolutely stunning.
There's a lot more in here worth reading, notably, how the administration blew a lot of opportunities by his refusal to cooperate with Iran in any way. I don't know how much longer this can go on while the public sleeps.
Wash Post: Afghanistan, Iraq: Two Wars Collide
Posted by mike at October 23, 2004 04:10 PM