Progress Report: Bush Rejects Key Components

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Center for American Progress - Progress Report

 

by David Sirota, Christy Harvey, Judd Legum and

Jonathan Baskin

 

 

 

August 3, 2004

9/11 COMMISSION Bush Rejects Key Components

HOMELAND SECURITY The Loss of Credibility

NUCLEAR SECURITY When Lip Service Isn't Enough

UNDER THE RADAR

 

9/11 COMMISSION

Bush Rejects Key Components

 

The 9/11 Commission proposed a bold restructuring of

the nation's intelligence apparatus to prevent future

terrorist attacks, but President Bush made clear

yesterday he was prepared to support only cosmetic

changes. One of the key recommendations of the 9/11

Commission is to create a new intelligence chief who

would oversee the nation's sprawling intelligence

infrastructure. Yesterday, Bush proposed creating the

position, but refused to empower the post with the

authority necessary for it to be effective. Similarly,

Bush accepted the commission's recommendation to

create a new counterterrorism center, but refused to

empower the body with the authority it needs.

According to the New York Times, " White House and Bush

campaign officials have long said that the details

matter far less than the pictures and sounds of Mr.

Bush talking in any way about his campaign against

terrorism. "

 

DIRECTOR HAS NO POWER OVER BUDGETS: The bi-partisan

9/11 Commission unanimously concluded that the only

way that a new intelligence chief could gain control

over the nation's 15 separate intelligence agencies is

to empower the position with full budgetary control.

But instead of giving the new post that power, the

president proposes #8211; in the words of his Chief of

Staff Andrew Card #8211; giving the new intelligence

director " an awful lot of input " in the intelligence

budgets. The move appears to be an effort to appease

current administration officials #8211; especially

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld #8211; who have

strenuously resisted ceding budgetary control over the

intelligence agencies housed in the Pentagon. But the

president's craven refusal to end the turf wars that

have plagued the intelligence community does not come

without a cost. Philip D. Zelikow, executive director

of the 9/11 commission and member of the Bush/Cheney

transition team, said last week if the new

intelligence chief was not given budgetary control " he

would oppose any change in the current system. " The

two chairs of the commission, Thomas Kean and Lee

Hamilton, released a joint statement that warned, " The

fate of these reform ideas turns vitally on the

specifics. "

 

DIRECTOR HAS NO POWER OVER PERSONNEL: The president

further weakened the authority of the new intelligence

director by not giving the position control over

personnel. Card said that, instead, the new post would

have a " coordinating role in the selection of people. "

The 9/11 Commission recommended giving the

intelligence director such authority for the sake of

national security. But apparently, Card was more

interested in preserving " 'the chain of command and

the responsibilities that accrue to the Cabinet

officials in charge of departments that house the

intelligence agencies, such as the Department of

Defense. "

 

COUNTERTERRORISM CENTER HAS NO POWER TO DIRECT

INTELLIGENCE OPERATIONS: At the recommendation of the

commission, Bush also proposed creating a new national

counterterrorism center. But Bush rejected the 9/11

Commission's unanimous recommendation to give the

center " the power to order clandestine operations and

collections. " Instead Bush proposed giving the new

body " only the authority to gather intelligence from

other agencies and prepare coordinated threat

information. "

 

NO URGENCY: It's been almost three years since the

9/11 attacks and the 9/11 Commission has stressed the

necessity to act quickly on its recommendations. But

yesterday, Bush " gave no specific timetable for when

he might name someone to the [intelligence chief]

position, and the White House did not answer questions

on whether the legislation creating the job could be

completed before November. " Bush also refused to call

Congress back for a special session to consider

reforms before Labor Day, saying " they can think about

them [the reforms] over August. "

 

HOMELAND SECURITY

The Loss of Credibility

 

Just one day after issuing a major terror warning that

was supposedly prompted by new information, the New

York Times and Washington Post report that the

decision, in fact, was based on old information from

before 9/11. Specifically, the Bush administration

acknowledged " they had not yet found concrete evidence

that a terrorist plot or preparatory surveillance

operations were still under way. " While the LA Times

does point out that " it appears the information was

updated as late as 2004 " one senior official told the

New York Times, " You could say that the bulk of this

information is old. " The key issue is not whether the

threat is real #8211; no one argues that al Qaeda

still wants to do great harm to us, and credible

intelligence must be acted upon to protect America.

But politicizing intelligence and threat reports

undermines the government's credibility and blurs the

line between protecting the homeland and promoting

fear for political gain.

 

POLITICAL MESSAGES IN ANNOUNCING THE ALERT: The

politicization of homeland security perhaps was no

better highlighted than in Homeland Security Secretary

Tom Ridge's press conference on Sunday. As the New

York Times reports, Ridge used the solemn announcement

to " repeatedly praise President Bush's leadership "

#8211; as if the press conference was some sort of

campaign event. Instead of focusing his praise on law

enforcement, Ridge claimed " We must understand that

the kind of information available to us today is the

result of the president's leadership in the war

against terror. "

 

CREDIBILITY DAMAGED IN MAY: In the last terror

warning, the Bush administration damaged its

credibility and raised questions of politicization. In

the same week President Bush's polls dropped to their

lowest point ever, Attorney General John Ashcroft held

a dramatic press conference about an urgent terrorist

threat. But he had no new information at all, and

instead simply told Americans to be on the lookout for

European-looking people who may be al Qaeda. The

administration's political move was so transparent,

that Ridge was forced to admit " there is absolutely

nothing specific enough " to warrant a change in the

threat level. A senior administration official agreed,

saying, " There really is no significant change that

would require us to change the alert level of the

country. "

 

POLITICAL QUESTIONS RAISED LAST WEEK: Last week during

the Democratic National Convention, Pakistan announced

it had captured a top al Qaeda suspect. The news was

welcome by all, but raised intense questions about the

political nature of its timing. According to a New

Republic article three weeks before, a White House

aide told a Pakistani official last spring that " it

would be best if the arrest or killing " of any high

value terrorist occurred during the Convention,

ostensibly to steal attention from the President's

opponents. Even more interesting, Pakistani officials

admitted that the al Qaeda suspect they captured was

actually caught five days before the announcement was

made, meaning they held the announcement to come just

hours before Sen. John Kerry's speech.

 

WHITE HOUSE HAS ADMITTED IT WANTS TO POLITICIZE: As

the Progress Report has previously documented, the

White House has essentially admitted its desire to

politicize homeland security and the fight against

terrorism. Nineteen weeks after 9/11, White House

political adviser Karl Rove implored Republican

candidates to use the fight against terrorism for

political gain, saying conservatives can " go to the

country " and run campaigns on national security. In

May of 2002, the Republican National Committee began

selling White House pictures of the president on 9/11

at campaign fundraisers. On 6/13/02, the Associated

Press reported the White House began urging

conservatives to push " messages highlighting the war

on terrorism. " And the list goes on.

 

NUCLEAR SECURITY

When Lip Service Isn't Enough

 

The recently released 9/11 Commission Report makes

clear one of the gravest dangers faced by the United

States is a " catastrophic attack " by terrorists armed

with weapons of mass destruction. There is evidence

terrorists are after nuclear weapon capabilities:

Osama bin Laden has attempted to buy uranium, and two

dozen other terrorist organizations are " pursing

chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear

materials. " And the Carnegie Endowment for

International Peace found that, " unlike countries

which may fear retaliation, terrorist groups could be

undeterred about using nuclear weapons. " In a press

conference yesterday, President Bush paid lip service

to this concern, saying, " Given the growing threat of

weapons and missile proliferation in our world, " new

steps must be taken to " track and prevent the spread

of weapons of mass destruction. " Empty words. In

action, the Bush administration has undertaken a

policy course which is counterproductive to

nonproliferation efforts and undermines the global

struggle to keep deadly WMD out of the hands of

terrorist enemies. (For more, read this column by

American Progress's Andy Grotto on the lack of U.S.

leadership on nonproliferation as well as A Nuclear

Non-Proliferation Strategy for the 21st Century by

Madeleine Albright and Robin Cook.)

 

FISSILE MATERIALS TREATY FIZZLES: Last week, on July

29, the White House decided to oppose any inspections

or verification as part of the Fissile Materials Cut

Off Treaty, the international treaty designed to ban

production of nuclear weapons materials. Experts

charge this is a blow to nuclear arms control: " The

change in U.S. position will dramatically weaken any

treaty and make it harder to prevent nuclear materials

from falling into the hands of terrorists. The

announcement, they said, also virtually kills a

10-year international effort to lure countries such as

Pakistan, India and Israel into accepting some

oversight of their nuclear production programs. "

 

COMPREHENSIVE TEST BAN CRUMBLED: The Bush

administration has also openly opposed the

Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. According to Daryl G.

Kimball, executive director of the Coalition to Reduce

Nuclear Dangers, this " leaves the door open to a

global chain reaction of nuclear testing, instability

and confrontation in the future. "

 

NUNN-LUGAR UNDERFUNDED: A decade ago, Sens. Sam Nunn

(D-GA) and Dick Lugar (R-IN) created the Cooperative

Threat Reduction (CTR) program, designed to help

former Soviet countries destroy nuclear, chemical and

biological weapons before they fell into the hands of

criminals, terrorists or rogue nations. According to

Charles B. Curtis of the Nuclear Threat Initiative in

the 5/7/04 Congressional Quarterly Weekly, " Very, very

little progress has taken place#8230;There is an

inertia that simply must be overcome with presidential

leadership in all the participant countries. " Matthew

Bunn, a nuclear-terrorism expert at the Belfer Center,

concurs: " Amazingly, " despite the new terrorist

threats throughout the world, U.S. funding for the CTR

programs " hasn't increased noticeably since Sept. 11. "

 

GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP NEEDS LEADERSHIP: Two years ago,

the United States joined other G-8 countries in

creating the Global Partnership Against the Spread of

Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction, an

international effort to fight the threat of WMD. The

White House pledged $10 billion, to be matched by the

other seven nations. Since then, only a fraction of

the pledged funds have been allocated.

 

KEEP AWAY FROM TERRORISTS: According to a recent

Harvard University report titled " Securing the Bomb:

An Agenda for Action, " the report says " less fissile

materials were secured in the two years after Sept 11

than in the two years before. " #160;

 

BUNKER BUSTERS AND MINI-NUKES: The Bush

administration, rather than curbing nuclear weapons,

has actually been trying to develop new, deadlier

ones. (Director of the International Atomic Energy

Agency El Baradei said countries continuing to develop

new weapons is akin to having a cigarette dangling

from your lips while admonishing other nations not to

smoke.) The White House has sought funding for " bunker

busters, " nuclear weapons that could penetrate deep

into the earth, and " mini-nukes, " for smaller nuclear

attacks. Both of these are considered " usable, "

first-use weapons, increasing the likelihood of

preemptive nuclear strikes, which in turn prods other

nations to accelerate their nuclear programs.

 

AXIS OF EVIL: In his 2002 State of the Union,

President Bush warned the nation against the Axis of

Evil: Iraq, Iran and North Korea: " The United States

of America will not permit the world's most dangerous

regimes to threaten us with the worlds' most

destructive weapons. " National Journal's Stuart Taylor

looks at the axis of evil today: Iran is a greater

nuclear threat than it was three years ago, " racing

toward bomb-making capability while thumbing its nose

at Europe and the United States. " The Bush

administration no real policy for dealing with North

Korea. Today, North Korea may already have eight

nuclear weapons and could be on its way to " making

about a dozen a year, with every intention of selling

them to terrorists and other willing bidders. " Iraq,

it turns out, had no weapons program, " so Bush appears

to have exhausted his 'pre-emption' doctrine on a

regime with no weapons to pre-empt. "

 

 

 

 

 

IRAQ #8211; PENTAGON WITHHOLDING PRISON DOCUMENTS:

Rolling Stone reports that newly-revealed Pentagon

documents show how far up the food chain the Iraq

prison abuse scandal goes. The documents, withheld by

the Pentagon from Gen. Antonio Taguba's report, " make

clear that responsibility for...abuses extends to

several high-ranking officers still serving in command

positions. " For instance, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller,

" who is now in charge of all military prisons in

Iraq, " was dispatched to Abu Ghraib by Defense

Secretary Donald Rumsfeld last August. In a report

marked " secret, " Miller recommended that military

police at the prison be " actively engaged in setting

the conditions for successful exploitation of the

internees. " After his plan was adopted, guards began

depriving prisoners of sleep and food, subjecting them

to painful " stress positions, " and terrorizing them

with dogs.#160; The Rolling Stone report adds more

evidence to an earlier Newsweek report that said

President Bush, " along with Defense Secretary Rumsfeld

and Attorney General John Ashcroft, signed off on

[the] secret system of detention and interrogation

that opened the door " to the prison abuse scandal in

the first place.

 

HEALTH CARE #8211; COLLAPSING COVERAGE: USA Today

reports, " The percentage of people who get health

insurance through employers fell sharply from 2001 to

2003, resulting in 9 million fewer people with

employer coverage after accounting for population

growth, researchers said Tuesday. " Unemployment and

skyrocketing insurance costs were to blame: " Job

losses caused by the sluggish economy were the main

reason for the drop in people covered by employer

health plans. But insurance premiums that increased 28

percent during the period also contributed to the

decline, as some employers stopped offering coverage,

while at some firms workers decided not to enroll

because their share of the cost rose. " And that means

more Americans in government-sponsored programs or

without insurance altogether.

 

DEFICIT #8211; DEBT SOARING TO NEW HEIGHTS: With the

Bush administration forecasting a record $639 billion

budget deficit in 2003-04, BBC reports, " US Treasury

Secretary John Snow has urged Congress to raise the

government's debt ceiling, or face a cash crunch in

the autumn. He warned that Washington was on track to

breach the current limit of $7.4 trillion in late

September. " The U.S. national debt - the sum of

previous annual budget deficits - currently stands at

nearly $7.3 trillion and the ceiling has already been

raised twice since Bush took office in 2000. The

administration likes to blame the fight against

terrorism and the war in Iraq for the deficits, but

the Boston Globe points out $290 billion of the

current deficit is directly attributable to the Bush

tax cuts. " Just 3 1/2 years ago, the Office of

Management and Budget was projecting a surplus of $387

billion for the 2004 fiscal year, which ends Sept.

30. "

 

MILITARY #8211; BUSH AWOL AFTER ALL: A four month

investigation by a Philadelphia researcher,

independently confirmed by a RAW story, " finally

proves that President George W. Bush did not

successfully complete his service with the Texas Air

National Guard. The president's own payroll records

#8211; recently released by the White House in an

effort to discredit claims that the president had

failed to meet Guard requirements #8211; instead

indicate that he was absent without leave (AWOL) in

1972, and should have been placed on active duty for

nearly four months. " American Progress's Larry Korb,

former assistant secretary of defense under President

Reagan, has reached a similar conclusion. Asked if he

thought Bush was AWOL, Korb said, " Based on these

payroll records, unless he had permission, it would

be. "

 

MEDIA #8211; FRANKEN GETS TV SHOW: AP reports

Progressive radio is hitting the small screen: " The Al

Franken Show, " heard live each weekday from noon to 3

p.m. on Air America Radio, " will be presented in a

one-hour edition on Sundance each night at 11:30 and

again at 2:30 a.m. " Air America, launched in March as

a response to the mostly conservative world of talk

radio, now has stations in 17 markets including New

York, Miami, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Anchorage and,

starting next week, San Diego. It can also be heard

over the internet.

 

#160;Don't Miss

DAILY TALKING POINTS: President's Terrorism Czar Lacks

Real Power

 

IRAQ: Rolling Stone uncovers documents withheld by the

Pentagon that shed more light on the Abu Ghraib prison

abuse scandal.

 

MEDIA: NYT columnist Paul Krugman examines the Fox

effect at the Democratic National Convention.

 

MEDIA: Al Franken's radio show will now be broadcast

on cable television.

 

Contact The Progress Report.

 

 

 

 

#160;Daily Grill

 

" In his statement [about the terror threat], Mr. Ridge

stayed away from politics. "

 

- WP, 8/3/04

 

VERSUS

 

" The kind of information available to us today is the

result of the president's leadership in the war

against terror. "

 

- Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, 8/1/04

 

#160;Daily Outrage

Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT), ignoring the White House's

clear record of politicizing homeland security,

claimed yesterday, " I don't think anybody who has any

fairness or is in their right mind would think the

president or the secretary of homeland security would

raise an alert level and scare people for political

reasons. " There is no indication Lieberman will issue

a retraction of his statements considering the NYT and

WP stories this morning.

 

#160;Archives

Progress Report

 

#160;Opportunity

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intern applications for the fall semester.