Looking to Elections,
Bush and Democrats
Spar on National Security
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David Scull for The New York Times
President Bush spoke to the Military Officers
Association of America in Washington on Tuesday. |
By SHERYL GAY
STOLBERG, NYTimes on the Web, September 6, 2006
WASHINGTON, Sept. 5 —
President Bush and Congressional Democrats locked horns on Tuesday on whether
Americans are safe from terrorism, part of a calculated effort by both parties
to capitalize on the coming anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks and gain the
upper hand in this year’s election debate over national security.
The White House released an updated version of its national security strategy,
concluding that “America is safer, but we are not yet safe.” Mr. Bush,
speaking to military officers, delivered the second in a series of speeches on
global terror. And on Wednesday he plans to deliver a third in the East
Room of the White House, where he will propose new legislation on bringing
terror detainees to trial.
The bill is in response to a Supreme Court ruling that deemed unconstitutional
the military commissions that Mr. Bush originally proposed. Late Tuesday,
presidential aides briefed lawmakers about the proposal. The plan is part
of a broader effort to seize the initiative on politically delicate issues
regarding the handling of terror suspects, including new rules for interrogation
techniques.
On Capitol Hill, Senate Democrats released their own report, which asserts that
Americans are less safe now than they were five years ago, and brought out
Wesley K. Clark, the retired general and 2004 presidential candidate, to trumpet
it. In an interview, General Clark said he was trying to help Democrats
“articulate a strong and successful national security position, so that people
can understand that Democrats can and will succeed in protecting the nation.”
The dueling appearances laid bare a central fact about the changing politics of
Sept. 11. Five years ago, there was a period of bipartisanship that has
evolved into a partisan brawl over the course Mr. Bush has pursued, especially
in invading Iraq. This week’s politicking would have been unthinkable four
years ago, but both sides openly embraced it on Tuesday.
Within hours of Mr. Bush’s speech, the Democratic Senate leader, Harry Reid of
Nevada, and the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee,
Charles E. Schumer of New York, were holed up in the Capitol, plotting strategy
for the remainder of the week, and another Democratic strategy session was
planned for later that evening.
“We are not going to let the Republicans occupy the high ground on this issue,”
Mr. Schumer said, “particularly when we believe the American people are not
happy with the policies in Iraq or in general on terrorism.”
At the White House, where aides have been planning the terrorism speeches since
July, strategists are seizing the anniversary to present Mr. Bush as a strong
commander in chief. In addition to the military officers who served as the
backdrop for Tuesday’s speech, the audience included wounded soldiers and
prominent Republican senators who are veterans, including Senator John W. Warner
of Virginia, chairman of the Armed Services Committee.
The speech employed some of Mr. Bush’s sharpest rhetoric to date. He
compared Osama bin Laden to Lenin and Hitler, saying, “Bin Laden and his
terrorist allies have made their intentions as clear as Lenin and Hitler before
them.”
The president also quoted liberally from Mr. bin Laden, warning that the
mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks is still pursuing his vision of “a unified
totalitarian Islamic state that can confront and eventually destroy the free
world.”
The speech used a classic strategy of Karl Rove, Mr. Bush’s chief political
adviser, who specializes in turning a candidate’s weakness into a strength.
In this case, Mr. Bush’s weakness is that Mr. bin Laden has not been captured —
a point that was quickly picked up by Democrats. Senator John Kerry of
Massachusetts said that if Mr. Bush had “unleashed the American military to do
the job at Tora Bora four years ago and killed Osama bin Laden, he wouldn’t have
to quote this barbarian’s words today.”
That did not stop Mr. Bush from mentioning Mr. bin Laden 17 times in the
44-minute speech, a tactic that seemed intended to emphasize the Republican
argument that the nation can trust the president and his party more than
Democrats to protect it from attacks.
White House aides and senior Republican strategists say their intent strategy is
to describe the threat to the public using as many specifics as possible.
Dan Bartlett, counselor to the president, said the intent was to remind citizens
of the “breadth and sophistication” of an enemy that “is advancing a vision, a
dark vision that needs to be confronted.”
Given the pubic discontent over the war in Iraq, the White House strategy is to
fuse the war with the broader fight against terrorism, while the Democratic
strategy is to separate the two. One Democratic strategist, granted
anonymity to talk about internal planning, said the goal was to tell the public
that “we’re strong and smart on terror, and that the White House is only
projecting strength, not smarts.”
To that end, Democrats sent a letter to the president on Monday proposing a “new
direction” for Iraq that called, among other things, for a “phased redeployment”
of military forces out of the country. On Tuesday, the White House took
the unusual step of releasing a formal reply, written by Joshua B. Bolten, Mr.
Bush’s chief of staff, who called the redeployment idea “dangerously misguided.”
Against the backdrop of the political debate, the administration is pressing two
terror-related issues on Capitol Hill, the detainee legislation, which Mr. Bush
is expected to announce on Wednesday, and a long-awaited Army field manual on
interrogation that is expected to be made public this week.
The manual authorizes three new techniques that could be used only in
questioning of “unlawful combatants,” like prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba,
according to a person who has been given a description of the revisions.
The new techniques are pairing a friendly interrogator with a hostile one,
convincing a prisoner that he is being interrogated by a country other than the
United States and isolating a detainee from other prisoners.
The current field manual allows 17 interrogation methods, which would remain
largely unchanged, the person said. Traditional prisoners of war captured
on a battlefield could be questioned using only these techniques.
The Defense Department had initially considered including a classified set on
interrogation methods that would not be made public, but that idea was dropped,
several officials said.
David S. Cloud and Kate Zernike contributed reporting for this
article.
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