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Washington Suffocates for Sake of Security, City Officials Argue

Local leaders say street closures and other federal anti-terrorism precautions are too much and regard citizens too little.

By Johanna Neuman
LA Times Staff Writer

August 4, 2004

WASHINGTON — As a target for terrorists, the nation’s capital is at the top of the list, a city of such world-famous symbols of political and economic might as the White House, the Capitol and the World Bank.

But in the eyes of local officials, security-obsessed federal authorities may kill the city before America’s enemies get the chance.

Furious at the latest street closings and checkpoints, imposed by Senate edict Monday night, city officials took to the streets Tuesday to express their outrage that congressional law enforcement officials were turning Washington into a fortress without regard for the people who live and work there — or the officials elected to govern it.

“We concede this certainly makes it easier for security,” Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District of Columbia’s congressional representative, said as she stood on 1st Avenue N.E., now closed between the Capitol and Union Station. “You want to really make it easier? Close down all the streets! Close down the city! You can make it real safe.”

A member of the Homeland Security Committee, Norton emphasized her commitment to fighting terrorism. “I recognize this is perhaps the highest-target city in the world,” said Norton, a Democrat who serves on committees but is not entitled to vote on the House floor because the District of Columbia is not a state. “But we have to remember that we are fighting to preserve security and freedom, not one or the other.”

Washington Mayor Anthony Williams, a normally low-key former accountant, raised his voice when meeting with reporters Tuesday.

“This is a living, breathing city; this isn’t just a dead, static piece of concrete,” he said, straining to be heard above the noise of an ambulance siren a block away. “We can’t continue to close streets without doing death to commerce in this city, to tourism in this city, to a tax base in this city that provides all the services people need…. If someone hiccups in this city, traffic already backs up into Maryland and Virginia. You start closing streets like this, it will be backed up to Delaware.”

Part of the anger comes from the city’s efforts to recover from the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, which killed 189 people at the Pentagon and devastated the city’s tourism industry.

“We worked so … hard to get the city’s economy back up after Sept. 11, against all these obstacles,” Williams said, referring to the lengthy shutdown of Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and the shuttering of the White House and the Capitol to visitors that finally yielded, this year, to a tourist turnaround.

“Now here we are reversing ground again. Yeah, it makes me angry,” he said.

Last week, Williams and other city officials were at the Democratic National Convention, dumping tea in Boston Harbor to protest their status as a city that paid taxes but had no vote in Congress.

That status is unlikely to change as long as Republicans are in charge on Capitol Hill, where the District of Columbia’s historically liberal politics would probably mean two more Democratic votes in the Senate and one in the House.

“To me, this feels like another glaring manifestation of lack of representation,” Williams said. “If we had two senators representing the district … there is no way they would just do this.”

Sharon Ambrose, the city councilwoman who represents the Capitol Hill area, was even more suspicious of federal motives. Noting Sunday’s decision by the Department of Homeland Security to raise the terrorist threat alert here from “yellow” (elevated) to “orange” (high), she accused congressional leaders of using “a sneak attack in the dead of night, under an orange blanket,” to “do something they wanted to do for several years.”

Congressional officials acknowledged Tuesday that they had long wanted to close 1st Street N.E. between Constitution Avenue and D Street, which allows traffic to pass by the Dirksen and Russell Senate Office Buildings.

“Yes, the Senate leadership made a deliberate decision to close 1st Street, based on intelligence and the advice of security officials,” Senate Sergeant-at-Arms William Pickle said in an interview.

“We discussed it for several weeks. We had to speed it up because of the orange alert.”

Agreeing with city officials that “no one likes closing streets,” Pickle said that congressional leaders opted to “err on the side of safety, to ensure the institution survives.”

Still, the symbolism of Washington’s city officials ruffled by federal edict — and by traffic jams around Capitol Hill — was lost on no one, particularly in a week when New Yorkers showcased a seemingly united front. New York City authorities banned commercial traffic on several bridges and from the inbound Holland Tunnel and conducted random searches of vans and service vehicles. Amid planning for the Republican National Convention at the end of the month and increasing security at the perimeter of Wall Street, city officials also reopened the Statue of Liberty on Tuesday — at least its pedestal.

Elsewhere in Washington, city police instituted heightened security measures around the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, cited by Homeland Security officials in their alert Sunday, and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and the Federal Reserve buildings. The mayor had no comment about those measures. But Norton did.

Asked if the orange alert was politically motivated by the Bush administration to increase voter concern about terrorism, Norton dismissed the idea. “In the District of Columbia we can’t afford to speculate that maybe it’s politics and maybe it’s not,” she said. “We’ve got a whole city to defend here…. We’re not going to second-guess them. But they sure are second-guessing us.”

Privately, city officials scoffed at federal explanations. One observer noted that after a farmer drove his tractor into a pond on the National Mall in a 2003 protest over reduced tobacco subsidies — and sat there for two workdays — federal law enforcement officials diverted traffic, snarling commutes. Publicly, city officials raised the concern that new traffic jams radiating from the Capitol to all parts of the city could impede emergency trips to the hospital or swift reaction by first responders to a terrorist attack.

Mostly, they expressed anguish that, once again, federal officials had ignored the city’s autonomy and its interests.

“They are turning what are supposed to be symbols of democracy — the Capitol, the Library of Congress, the Supreme Court — into a fortress of fear,” Tony Bullock, the mayor’s press secretary, said.

“That sends entirely the wrong message. It’s just wrong. It’s the wrong optics. It looks like a war zone.”

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-dcsecurity4aug04.story

August 4, 2004
NEWS ANALYSIS

War and Peace, and Politics
By TODD S. PURDUM
WASHINGTON, Aug. 3 - In an election that could well turn on questions of war and peace, danger and safety, all politics sometimes seem to be security these days. And all security has an unmistakable overtone of politics, whatever the reality or immediacy of any announced threat.

“We don’t do politics in the Department of Homeland Security,” Secretary Tom Ridge said on Tuesday in dismissing any suggestion that his latest threat warning had a political motive. But on Sunday, Mr. Ridge, a former Republican congressman and governor of Pennsylvania, did do some politics all the same, when he declared that the intelligence behind his alert was “the result of the president’s leadership in the war against terror.”

John Kerry may not share that view, of course, but it is hard for him to say so, and the biggest thing the Democrats may have to fear in this campaign is the power of fear itself.

Polls show that Mr. Bush’s handling of terrorism remains his only clear advantage over Mr. Kerry in a razor-close race, and the president would not be either human or the canny politician he has proved himself to be in the past if he did not do all he could to remind the public of that strong suit - and to reinforce it.

That is why Mr. Bush chose to hold the Republican National Convention this month in Madison Square Garden, a short subway ride from ground zero, and why he released a new campaign advertisement on Tuesday with images of the firefighters and the flag, proclaiming, “The last few years have tested America in many ways, but together, we’re rising to the challenge: standing up against terrorism and working to grow our economy.”

But Mr. Bush must also take pains not to be seen as letting the political tail wag the terrorism dog. Word that much of the newly discovered intelligence that prompted the latest alert was years old led even some law enforcement officials to wonder why Mr. Ridge had raised the threat level just now.

“My own view is that the White House will be granted huge latitude by the public on matters involving potential terrorist attacks,” said Don Sipple, a longtime Republican political consultant. “Only the most cynical would view any political motivation. They have up to this point erred on the side of caution. It so happens he’s a candidate for re-election, but first and foremost he’s the president of the United States, fulfilling that role in dangerous times and a dangerous world. Shame on anybody who challenges that.”

The political risk for Mr. Kerry is clearer. Last week, when he wanted to show himself as a qualified commander in chief, he imported a parade of veterans, admirals and generals to the Democratic convention to praise him, then spoke passionately about his own combat service in Vietnam.

On Monday, Mr. Bush reminded Mr. Kerry and anyone else who was watching that he is already commander in chief, as he stepped into the White House Rose Garden with the gravitas that only the president can grasp - flanked by the secretaries of state, defense and homeland security and the attorney general - to announce support for creation of a new national intelligence director and comment on the latest terror alert.

“What this last 48 hours has shown is that the incumbent president really can dictate the agenda of a presidential campaign, and all of Kerry’s efforts on the road can be derailed by a morning press conference in Washington,” said Scott Reed, who ran Bob Dole’s unsuccessful campaign against Bill Clinton in 1996. “That’s just the challenge of running against an incumbent president. It’s tough. Take it from me.”

Polls show that while handling terrorism remains the one area where Mr. Bush is seen as a surer hand than Mr. Kerry, he has lost considerable ground in recent months, and the Democratic convention closed the gap even more.

In a CBS News poll conducted over the weekend, a majority of Americans, 51 percent, said they approved of the way Mr. Bush was handling the campaign against terrorism while 43 percent disapproved, down from March, when 60 percent approved and 32 percent disapproved.

Kenneth M. Duberstein, who was President Ronald Reagan’s last White House chief of staff, said that Mr. Bush and his aides “have to play this absolutely straight, and I think they are.” He added, “I think they have an imperative to explain to the American people not only the danger, but also enough of the background so that people are convinced this is for real.”

Mr. Bush is all too aware of the price he would pay if he had information about a possible attack and failed to share it. The report of the Sept. 11 commission detailed the missed clues and miscues that might have foiled the hijackers’ plot. So the president’s advisers make it clear that they are more than willing to suffer some second-guessing of their motives as they go about doing what they see as their jobs, and they insist that politics plays no part.

“We wouldn’t be, you know, contacting authorities at the local level unless something was real,” Mr. Bush said on Monday.

Among Democrats, only former Gov. Howard Dean of Vermont has gone so far as to say out loud that he believes the administration is “manipulating the release of information in order to affect the president’s campaign.”

And even those remarks, barbed as they are, are no sharper than the comments some Republicans leveled at President Bill Clinton six years ago, when he ordered cruise missile strikes against Qaeda outposts in retaliation for the bombing of American embassies in East Africa days after confessing to his affair with Monica Lewinsky.

Daniel R. Coats, then a Republican senator from Indiana and now Mr. Bush’s ambassador to Germany, summed up his feeling at the time.

“The danger here,” Mr. Coats said then of Mr. Clinton, “is that once a president loses credibility with the Congress, as this president has through months of lies and deceit and manipulations and deceptions, stonewalling, it raises into doubt everything he does and everything he says, and maybe everything he doesn’t do and doesn’t say.” He added: “I just hope and pray the decision that was made was made on the basis of sound judgment, and made for the right reasons, and not made because it was necessary to save the president’s job.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/04/politics/campaign/04assess.html?th

Je découvre à peine ce site, et je n’ai pas mis longtemps à l’adopter.

En lisant il y a deux heures ce papier mettant en exergue la façon dont la Maison Blanche compte user de l’effet “menace terroriste” durant cette campagne, je me suis dit : “il y a des chances pour que les documents exhumés de l’ordinateur du terroriste pakistanais arrêté la semaine dernière soient vieilles de plusieurs années”. A cet instant, je n’avais pas encore lu le compte rendu des enquêtes du Post et du NYT par Le Monde (cf : http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3222,36-374389,0.html).

D’après ces deux enquêtes, de haut responsables impliqués dans les officines américaines chargées de la sécurité estime que les données dont a fait état Tom Ridge, et à sa suite G.W. Bush lors de sa conférence de presse de dimanche dernier, daterait de plusieurs années. Ci fait.

Au-delà de tout cela, qui a un irresistible caractère cocasse, la question que je me pose est la suivante : Si l’intoxication du citoyen à l’effet “menace terroriste permanente’ a bel et bien fonctionné à plein durant la préparation de la guerre en Irak et durant les premiers mois de l’offensive, il semble qu’une fois détaché du conflit le risque d’un effet boomerang à la Aznar soit de plus en plus grand, d’où ma question : les armes de communication massive de Bush (Guerre en Irak, sureté nationale, risque permanent d’une attaque terroriste, etc.) ne sont-elles pas devenues tellement instables qu’il ne pourra plus les manipuler ? Le cas échéant, de quelles armes dispose-t-il ?

Certes Kerry se fait coincer par la logique médiatique quand il approuve le relèvement de l’état d’alerte au bénéfice du doute provoqué par l’annonce de GWB, mais puisque les grands quotidiens ont eux décidé de s’affranchir de l’esprit de mobilisation générale (cf le mea culpa du NYT), les campagnes d’intoxication vont faire long feu et Kerry retrouvera une sorte de légitimité sans prendre le risque majeur de contredire Bush le jour où ce dernier aura eu raison (ce qui peut arriver, à force de crier au loup…).

Reste une interrogation plus profonde que toutes les autres : les Américains feront-ils payer ou non à Bush d’avoir menti sans cesse avec la sincérité d’un bon Américain dévoué corps et âme (et portefeuille) à son pays ? Partagent-ils ou non, ce sens de la démocratie et de la vérité qui a si souvent (mais pas tout le temps, loin s’en faut) fait l’honneur de ce pays ?

C’est là que la portée d’un film comme F911 a une dimension historique que l’on pourrait rapprocher de Thoreau le jour où il a refusé de payer ses impôts à cause des états esclavagistes du sud, provoquant indirectement la guerre civile.

Nous verrons bien, en tous cas, la présidence de Bush restera dans les annales comme un tournant majeur dans l’histoire de la démocratie de masse.

washingtonpost.com

Intelligence Reform And False Urgency

By Chuck Hagel

Tuesday, August 3, 2004; Page A17

We stand at a moment filled with potential for bringing about the responsible intelligence reforms needed to meet the threats of the 21st century. But if we allow the current national consensus for intelligence reform to become a tool in the partisan rancor of presidential politics, we risk doing enormous damage to our intelligence community. We must not allow false urgency dictated by the political calendar to overtake the need for serious reform. This is an enormous undertaking filled with consequences that will last a generation.

There is no debate about the need to reform our 20th century intelligence infrastructure. Yesterday President Bush and Sen. John F. Kerry publicly discussed several reform ideas that Congress will consider. But there is much work to be done to bring about the right reforms. Policymakers must not shy away from this responsibility; we must embrace it. The stakes could not be higher. While inaction is unacceptable, serious consequences will come with reform. Policymakers owe it to the American people to understand these consequences before they act.

A mistaken impression has developed that since Sept. 11, 2001, little has been done to improve our intelligence capabilities. This is not true. We are unquestionably a safer nation today than we were three years ago. The legislative and executive branches of government have been reviewing and adjusting our intelligence—the gathering, processing and management of it—since Sept. 11. We are vastly more prepared to respond to biological or chemical terrorist attacks than before Sept. 11. Our border security, documentation, information sharing and coordination among government agencies have all been improved. Last month, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, on which I serve, issued the first part of our report on intelligence failures prior to the war in Iraq. We have begun the second phase of our report, which will include recommendations on reform of our intelligence community. We have heard and will continue to hear from current and former members of that community, intelligence experts and policymakers responsible for making decisions based on the intelligence they are provided.

In 2001 the president’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, chaired by former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft, provided the president with a comprehensive review of the intelligence community and recommendations.

Last month the Sept. 11 commission, led by former New Jersey governor Tom Kean and former Indiana representative Lee Hamilton, produced a remarkable bipartisan document that offered recommendations for improving our intelligence and security structures. All Americans owe them a debt of gratitude for their work.

This year President Bush designated a bipartisan panel to examine U.S. intelligence capabilities. The commission, led by former senator and governor Chuck Robb of Virginia and federal appellate judge Laurence Silberman, has been given a broad mandate to “assess whether the Intelligence Community is sufficiently authorized, organized, equipped, trained and resourced to . . . support United States Government efforts to respond to . . . the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, related means of delivery, and other related threats of the 21st Century.” They are to report their findings to the president by March 31.

In addition to the intelligence committees, Senate and House committees are studying reform of our intelligence community. Some will hold hearings during the August congressional recess. The work of intelligence reform cuts a wide swath across our government. All these hearings in committees of jurisdiction are critical for any reforms to succeed.

The American people should have confidence that our intelligence system is the finest in the world. This is no reason to ignore the reforms needed to meet the threats we face, but it is reason for the American people to feel secure. They should not be misled into believing that they are at risk because of an incompetent, inadequate intelligence system. Panic is not the order of the day. Responsible reform is the objective.

Our society is the most open, transparent and free society in history. Because of this, we will always face risks. The leaders charged with keeping this country safe should never be satisfied that we have done enough. There will always be room to improve our intelligence and security systems.

We will reform our intelligence community. The responsibilities of leadership require our action. But we must not rush haphazardly through what may be the most complicated and significant government reorganization since World War II. By the time the commission that President Bush empaneled to examine U.S. intelligence reports to him next March, we will have completed a massive series of investigations and hearings and a decisive presidential election.

The consequences of the decisions we make regarding intelligence reform will ripple far beyond our shores. The security of the next generation of Americans and global stability depend on our ability to wisely answer history’s call. We must match the timeliness of our actions with wisdom and reason. This requires responsible reform.

The writer is a Republican senator from Nebraska.

© 2004 The Washington Post Company

washingtonpost.com

Pre-9/11 Acts Led To Alerts
Officials Not Sure Al Qaeda Continued To Spy on Buildings

By Dan Eggen and Dana Priest
Washington Post
Staff Writers
Tuesday, August 3, 2004; Page A01

Most of the al Qaeda surveillance of five financial institutions that led to a new terrorism alert Sunday was conducted before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and authorities are not sure whether the casing of the buildings has continued, numerous intelligence and law enforcement officials said yesterday.

More than half a dozen government officials interviewed yesterday, who declined to be identified because classified information is involved, said that most, if not all, of the information about the buildings seized by authorities in a raid in Pakistan last week was about three years old, and possibly older.

“There is nothing right now that we’re hearing that is new,” said one senior law enforcement official who was briefed on the alert. “Why did we go to this level? . . . I still don’t know that.”

One piece of information on one building, which intelligence officials would not name, appears to have been updated in a computer file as late as January 2004, according to a senior intelligence official. But officials could not say yesterday whether that piece of data was the result of active surveillance by al Qaeda or came instead from information about the buildings that is publicly available.

Many administration officials stressed yesterday that even three-year-old intelligence, when coupled with other information about al Qaeda’s plans to attack the United States, justified the massive security response in the three cities. Police and other security teams have been assigned to provide extra protection for the surveilled buildings, identified as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank headquarters in Washington; the New York Stock Exchange and Citigroup Center in New York; and the Prudential Financial building in Newark.

Intelligence officials said that the remarkably detailed information about the surveillance—which included logs of pedestrian traffic and notes on the types of explosives that might work best against each target—was evaluated in light of general intelligence reports received this summer indicating that al Qaeda hopes to strike a U.S. target before the November presidential elections.

Several officials also said that much of the information compiled by terrorist operatives about the buildings in Washington, New York and Newark was obtained through the Internet or other “open sources” available to the general public, including some floor plans.

The characterization of the age of the intelligence yesterday cast a new light on Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge’s announcement Sunday that the terrorism threat alert for the financial services sectors in the three cities had been raised. Ridge and other officials stressed Sunday the urgency of acting on the newly obtained information, but yesterday a range of officials made clear how dated much of the intelligence was.

One senior intelligence official said the information is still being evaluated.

A number of other buildings were mentioned in the seized computer files, but only in vague references, so officials decided not to issue alerts about them, an intelligence official said. They included the Bank of America building in San Francisco; the Nasdaq and American Stock Exchange buildings in New York, as well as two other sites in that city; and an undisclosed building in Washington and another in New Jersey.

“We chose not to release it because we decided they weren’t anywhere near the same level of danger as the others,” the official said.

President Bush and Vice President Cheney said in separate appearances yesterday that the new alert underscores the continuing threat posed by al Qaeda. At a news conference announcing his proposed intelligence reforms, Bush said the alert shows “there’s an enemy which hates what we stand for.”

“It’s serious business,” Bush said. “I mean, we wouldn’t be, you know, contacting authorities at the local level unless something was real.”

Employees at announced targets in New York and New Jersey arrived at work yesterday with a mix of defiance and jitters. Some said they wanted to send a message that terrorists could not deter them from living their lives as usual. Others were visibly shaken by the presence of heavily armed police officers and new barricades.

At the New York Stock Exchange, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg rang the opening bell. Exchange chief executive John A. Thain and Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) greeted arriving workers. “I wouldn’t be surprised if attendance weren’t higher today,” Schumer said. “We are winning the war of nerves.”

Much of the information about the targeted buildings is contained on a laptop computer and computer disks recovered during recent raids in Pakistan. A senior intelligence official said the cache also includes about 500 photographs, diagrams and drawings, some of them digital.

Two senior intelligence officials who briefed reporters on Sunday said the material showed al Qaeda operatives had cased the buildings both before and after the Sept. 11 attacks.

“I think the indications are that this has been a very longstanding effort on the part of al Qaeda,” one official said Sunday, “that it dates from before 9/11, it continued after 9/11 and based on what it is that we are concerned about, we know about in terms of al Qaeda’s plans and intentions that it probably continues even today.”

Speaking about the five buildings, one official said, “I believe that since 9/11 they have been able to acquire additional information on these targets here in the United States, yes, I do.”

Numerous officials said yesterday, however, that most of the information was compiled prior to the Sept. 11 attacks and that there are serious doubts about the age of other, undated files. One senior counterterrorism official said many of the documents include dates prior to Sept. 11, 2001, but there are no dates after that.

“Most of the information is very dated but you clearly have targets with enough specificity, and that pushed it over the edge,” the counterterrorism official said. “You’ve got the Republican convention coming up, the Olympics, the elections. . . . I think there was a feeling that we should err on the side of caution even if it’s not clear that anything is new.”

One federal law enforcement source said his understanding from reviewing the reports was that the material predated Sept. 11 and included photos that can be obtained from brochures and some actual snapshots. There also were some interior diagrams that appear to be publicly available.

Other officials also stressed that, however long ago al Qaeda operatives compiled the surveillance details, the information was new to U.S. intelligence agencies and was almost unprecedented in the depth of its details. “All this stuff was fresh to us,” one official said.

At the CIA’s daily 5 p.m. counterterrorism meeting Thursday, the first information about the detailed al Qaeda surveillance of the five financial buildings was discussed among senior CIA, FBI and military officials. They decided to launch a number of worldwide operations, including the deployment of increased law enforcement around the five buildings.

A senior intelligence official said translations of the computer documents and other intelligence started arriving on Friday. “We worked on it late, and through that night,” he said. “We had very specific, credible information, and when we laid it in on the threat environment we’re in,” officials decided they had to announce it.

“It’s not known whether the plot was active and ongoing,” the official added. “It could have been planned for tomorrow, or it could have been scrapped. Maybe there were other iterations of it. In this environment, this was seen as pertinent information to get out to the public. There was discussion over the weekend, should we wait until Monday?”

Initially, top administration officials had decided to wait until yesterday to announce the alert, but more intelligence information was coming in—both new translations of the documents, and analysis of other sources’ statements—that deepened their concern about the information, and persuaded them to move ahead swiftly. “There was a serious sense of urgency to get it out,” the senior intelligence official said.

On Saturday, officials from the CIA, the FBI, the Homeland Security and Justice departments, the White House, and other agencies agreed with Ridge to recommend that the financial sectors in New York, Washington and North Jersey be placed on orange, or “high,” alert. Ridge made the recommendation to Bush on Sunday morning, and Bush signed off on it at 10 a.m.

In a signal of how seriously the administration took the information, officials briefed senior media executives, including network anchors, before a Sunday news conference and briefing for reporters.

In New York yesterday, traffic backed up at tunnels and bridges into the city, Hercules and Atlas police teams toting rifles and machine guns checked vehicles, police helicopters crisscrossed the skies, and employees throughout the financial district stood in long security queues, showing their corporate identifications and bags to guards.

Around the NYSE in Lower Manhattan, rows of concrete and metal barricades were in place and side streets were blocked off.

In Newark, officials set up concrete barriers and police teams around the 24-story Prudential building, where about 1,000 employees work. “I’m a little nervous,” analyst Tracy Swistak, 27, told the Associated Press. “But I’m confident Prudential’s doing everything they can to ensure our safety.”

Staff writers John Mintz, Allan Lengel and Spencer S. Hsu in Washington and Michael Powell, Michelle Garcia and Ben White in New York contributed to this report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35466-2004Aug2.html

August 3, 2004

Reports That Led to Terror Alert Were Years Old, Officials Say

By DOUGLAS JEHL and DAVID JOHNSTON
ASHINGTON, Aug. 2 -Much of the information that led the authorities to raise the terror alert at several large financial institutions in the New York City and Washington areas was three or four years old, intelligence and law enforcement officials said on Monday. They reported that they had not yet found concrete evidence that a terrorist plot or preparatory surveillance operations were still under way.

But the officials continued to regard the information as significant and troubling because the reconnaissance already conducted has provided Al Qaeda with the knowledge necessary to carry out attacks against the sites in Manhattan, Washington and Newark. They said Al Qaeda had often struck years after its operatives began surveillance of an intended target.

Taken together with a separate, more general stream of intelligence, which indicates that Al Qaeda intends to strike in the United States this year, possibly in New York or Washington, the officials said even the dated but highly detailed evidence of surveillance was sufficient to prompt the authorities to undertake a global effort to track down the unidentified suspects involved in the surveillance operations.

“You could say that the bulk of this information is old, but we know that Al Qaeda collects, collects, collects until they’re comfortable,’’ said one senior government official. “Only then do they carry out an operation. And there are signs that some of this may have been updated or may be more recent.’‘

Frances Fragos Townsend, the White House homeland security adviser, said on Monday in an interview on PBS that surveillance reports, apparently collected by Qaeda operatives had been “gathered in 2000 and 2001.’’ But she added that information may have been updated as recently as January.

The comments of government officials on Monday seemed softer in tone than the warning issued the day before. On Sunday, officials were circumspect in discussing when the surveillance of the financial institutions had occurred, and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge cited the quantity of intelligence from “multiple reporting streams’’ that he said was “alarming in both the amount and specificity of the information.’‘

The officials said on Monday that they were still analyzing computer records, photos, drawings and other documents, seized last month in Pakistan, which showed that Qaeda operatives had conducted extensive reconnaissance.

“What we’ve uncovered is a collection operation as opposed to the launching of an attack,” a senior American official said.

Still, the official said the new trove of material, which was being sifted for fresh clues, combined with more recent flows of intelligence, had demonstrated that Al Qaeda remains active and intent on attacking the United States.

The concern about the possibility of an attack was apparent on Monday. Armed guards were positioned at the five targets listed by Mr. Ridge: the New York Stock Exchange and the Citigroup buildings in Manhattan, the headquarters of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in Washington and Prudential Financial in Newark. The buildings were subjected to their highest level of security since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, with barricades, rapid-response teams and bomb-sniffing dogs providing rings of protection.

With intelligence reports specifying a possible truck bombing, police stopped and searched vehicles in the Wall Street area, while vans and trucks were banned from bridges and tunnels entering lower Manhattan.

In Washington, President Bush said the alert issued on Sunday reflected “a serious business.’’ He said at a White House news conference, “We wouldn’t be contacting authorities at the local level unless something was real.’‘

Despite the new terror warnings, the stock market gained ground, denting expectations that it would drop with the heightened security alert. The Dow Jones industrial average was up 39 points.

A sizable part of the information seized in Pakistan described reconnaissance carried out before the Sept. 11 attacks, officials said. The documents do not indicate who wrote the detailed descriptions of security arrangements at the financial buildings or whether the surveillance was conducted for a current operation or was part of preparations for a plan that was later set aside.

In a briefing on Sunday, a senior intelligence official said that the threat to the financial institutions “probably continues even today.”

Federal authorities said on Monday that they had uncovered no evidence that any of the surveillance activities described in the documents was currently under way. They said officials in New Jersey had been mistaken in saying on Sunday that some suspects had been found with blueprints and may have recently practiced “test runs’’ aimed at the Prudential building in Newark.

Joseph Billy Jr., the special agent in charge of the F.B.I.‘s Newark office, said a diagram of the Prudential building had been found in Pakistan. “It appears to be from the period around 9/11,’’ Mr. Billy said. “Now we’re trying to see whether it goes forward from there.’’

Another counterterrorism official in Washington said that it was not yet clear whether the information pointed to a current plot. “We know that Al Qaeda routinely cases targets and then puts the plans on a shelf without doing anything,’’ the official said.

The documents were found after Pakistani authorities acting on information supplied by the Central Intelligence Agency arrested Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, an engineer who was found to have served as a middleman in facilitating Qaeda communications. His capture led the C.I.A. to laptop computers, CD-ROM’s, and other storage devices that contained copies of communications describing the extensive surveillance.

Mr. Khan had been essentially unknown to the United States as recently as May, according to information provided by a Pakistani intelligence official, who said the C.I.A. had described him to Pakistani authorities that month only as a shadowy figure identified by his alias, Abu Talha.

The lack of knowledge about Mr. Khan reflected how hard it has been for American authorities to penetrate Al Qaeda. He operated successfully without the government learning of his existence even after three years of an intensive intelligence war against Qaeda that has emphasized efforts to intercept the terror network’s communications traffic.

In pursuing the new leads, intelligence and law enforcement authorities were working at several different levels, American officials said, in trying to make sense of what some described as a “jigsaw puzzle” that included first names, aliases, and temporary email addresses but little hard identifying material that could lead to suspects in the United States or overseas.

The scope of the inquiry ranged from “individuals who were orchestrating it from far-off lands to individuals who were in charge of different cells, to the actual operating of cells,” a senior intelligence official said. The priority effort to identify people connected to the surveillance of the financial institutions has been under way since counterterrorism officials received the new information from Pakistan beginning Thursday evening, counterterrorism officials said on Monday.

The information, which officials said was indicative of preparations for a possible truck- or car-bomb attack, left significant gaps. It did not clearly describe the suspected plot, indicate when an attack was to take place nor did it describe the identities of people involved.

As a result, federal and local authorities began an effort to locate possible suspects who might have carried out the surveillance. Intelligence officers began interviewing Qaeda detainees asking whether they knew Mr. Khan or anyone who might have been involved in monitoring the targeted buildings and allied foreign intelligence services were asked if they had any information about the suspected plot.

At the same time, federal agents and local police began canvassing the buildings regarded as likely targets seeking to determine whether anyone recalled seeing people who appeared to be conducting surveillance. They sought lists of employees to determine whether anyone suspicious might have worked at any of the buildings and names of vendors, searching for anyone who might have visited the buildings to study security arrangements.

Senior counterterrorism and intelligence officials based in Europe said the information targeting the five buildings was developed by Qaeda operatives before Sept. 11, 2001. But a senior European counterterrorism official cautioned that “some recent information’’ indicated that the buildings might remain on a list of Qaeda targets.

“Al Qaeda routinely comes up with ways to hit targets for years at a time, so it may not mean much that these buildings were first targeted more than three years ago,’’ the official said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/03/politics/03intel.html?th

President Says War Was ‘Right’

By Edwin Chen
LA Times Staff Writer

August 3, 2004

WASHINGTON — President Bush declared Monday that “knowing what I know today, we still would have gone on into Iraq,” signaling that revelations of flaws in the prewar intelligence had not changed his mind about the wisdom of attacking and removing Saddam Hussein from power.

Bush acknowledged that no banned weapons had been found in Iraq, but he said they might still turn up. “We still would have gone to make our country more secure,” he said, adding that Hussein “had the capability of making weapons.”

“He had terrorist ties,” Bush said. “The decision I made was the right decision.”

The comments, which the president offered during a brief White House news conference, marked something of a political gamble. Polls suggest that up to half the American public now believes that the war was a mistake, given that no weapons of mass destruction have turned up in Iraq.

“I don’t think the president is helping himself when he says things like this. It’s a real stretch to think that a majority of Americans would have been supportive of attacking Iraq in the absence of either a clear connection to Sept. 11 or an imminent WMD threat,” said political analyst Charlie Cook, referring to weapons of mass destruction.

“Statements like this by the president only lend credence to the charges that he was determined to attack, no matter what,” Cook said.

Political experts also said that Bush’s comments showed he was eager to push back at Democratic claims that he had mishandled national security and the war in Iraq, considered to be the president’s strongest suits. At the Democratic National Convention in Boston last week, Bush’s opponents tried to build the case that the nation needed new leadership on those issues.

The president repeatedly has called Iraq a “central front” in the war on terrorism and says that a free Iraq would help spread democracy throughout the Middle East. He also has said that Hussein’s capacity to make dangerous weapons, and to pass them on to terrorists, presented a security risk.

But his comments Monday were noteworthy in the wake of a Senate Intelligence Committee report last month that said the prewar warnings about Iraq’s illicit weapons programs were largely unfounded. The report said the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies had made a series of errors that led to incorrect conclusions that Iraq had stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons and was rebuilding its nuclear weapons program.

Before the war, Bush said repeatedly that Hussein had stockpiled biological and chemical weapons and that the Iraqi leader had not complied with U.N. requirements that he disclose his weapons programs and take other required actions.

“If the Iraqi regime wishes peace,” Bush told the United Nations General Assembly in September 2002, “it will immediately and unconditionally forswear, disclose and remove or destroy all weapons of mass destruction, long-range missiles and all related material.”

Now, Bush faces a political problem as he revisits the reasons for war, said Stuart Rothenberg, an independent analyst.

“He’s caught between a rock and a hard place,” Rothenberg said. “An acknowledgment of error would undercut the whole message of strength and toughness and leadership,” possibly eroding the president’s base of support.

On the other hand, he said, Bush’s recent comments about the rationale for war may prompt some to view him as obstinate to the point of being unwilling to admit a mistake.

In a Times Poll of more than 1,500 registered voters last month, 45% said the war in Iraq was justified, while 51% said it was a mistake. The respondents answered after being told that the Senate Intelligence Committee had found no evidence that Iraq was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction or rebuilding its nuclear program, but that Bush had maintained that the war was justified because it would make the Mideast more stable and the United States safer.

The president spoke with reporters Monday after announcing that he would urge Congress to create the job of national intelligence director to oversee a function now scattered among more than a dozen agencies.

Democratic challenges to Bush’s performance on national security matters and the Iraq war were a main feature of the party’s convention. In accepting the party’s nomination for president, Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry promised “to bring back this nation’s time-honored tradition: The United States of America never goes to war because we want to; we only go to war because we have to.”

Bush’s comments were a firmer statement of an argument he had outlined previously.

On July 12, three days after the Senate Intelligence Committee issued its report faulting the prewar intelligence, Bush told workers at a nuclear weapons laboratory: “Although we have not found stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, we were right to go into Iraq. We removed a declared enemy of America who had the capability of producing weapons of mass murder and could have passed that capability to terrorists bent on acquiring them.”

Bush also turned aside a suggestion from Kerry on Monday that his policies had fueled the recruitment of terrorists.

Kerry, in an interview with CNN, said the Bush administration, “in its policies, is actually encouraging the recruitment of terrorists.”

“We haven’t done the work necessary to reach out to other countries,” Kerry said. “We haven’t done the work necessary with the Muslim world.”

The president responded: “That’s a misunderstanding of the war on terror. Obviously, we have a clear — a difference of opinion, a clear difference of opinion about the stakes that face America.

“The best way to protect the American homeland is to stay on the offense. It is a ridiculous notion to assert that because the United States is on the offense, more people want to hurt us. We’re on the offense because people do want to hurt us.”

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-bush3aug03.story

U.S. and manhood: Leadership is about respect, not just fear

Robert Wright NYT
Tuesday, August 03, 2004

John Kerry, tough-talking war hero, cut an impressive figure at last week’s convention, maybe impressive enough to threaten the Republicans’ time-honored dominance of the manliness issue - that is, national security. But you can already hear the Republican reply taking shape: All right, you’ve shown us your muscles, but where’s the beef? What exactly is your strategy for the war on terrorism?

It’s a tricky question. National security challenges rarely lend themselves to the programmatic laundry lists that are tossed at domestic problems, and global terrorism may be the most complex national security challenge ever. That’s why the few specifics Kerry did offer on the terrorism front were underwhelming - he’s against closing fire stations, for example. Still, there is a way for Kerry and John Edwards to frame an antiterrorism strategy that, though not programmatic, would be genuinely illuminating and politically powerful, cutting to the core of President George W. Bush’s greatest national security failure. And they may be closer to this formula than they realize, for it fits naturally into the rhetorical framework the Democrats built at their convention.

Kerry rightly stressed how thoroughly Bush has lowered the world’s opinion of the United States. In elaborating, he said that America can’t fight a war on terrorism without allies. That’s true, but it doesn’t by itself underscore the penchant for complex thought that Kerry attributed to himself in his acceptance speech. Even Bush now seems to realize that antagonizing allies is a bad idea. In fact, since the dawn of recorded history, just about everyone has recognized this.

What is new, and uniquely challenging, about the war on terrorism is that hatred of America well beyond the bounds of its alliance now imperils national security. Fervent anti-Americanism among Muslims is the wellspring of terrorism, regardless of whether they live in countries whose governments cooperate with us. Yet this is a part of world opinion Kerry didn’t talk about.

His reticence is understandable. Fretting about Muslim opinion sounds a little like worrying that your enemy may not like you - even though, of course, the Muslims you’re worrying about are the ones who haven’t signed on with the enemy but may be leaning that way. So when Democrats talk about Muslim hatred, they’re just begging to be called wimps by all those right-wing bloggers who have Machiavelli’s dictum - better to be feared than loved - tattooed across their chests.

But, however steep the rhetorical challenge posed by the fact that real men don’t need love, the Democrats have already gone a ways toward meeting it, and they’ve done so on the strength of a single word: respect. As anyone who tuned into the convention for more than a few minutes is probably aware, the Democrats want an America that is “respected in the world.” And even if Kerry’s concrete elaborations on this theme were about the importance of allies, respect is the perfect entrée to the issue of Muslim hatred - a way to confront Machiavelli’s dichotomy without winding up on the girlie-man side of it.

We Americans don’t need to be loved in the Muslim world, but we need to be respected. And even real men want respect. After all, strength can command respect. In fact, instilling fear can help instill respect. It’s just that fear isn’t enough. (This could be the epitaph of Bush’s foreign policy: Apparently fear wasn’t enough.)

For a nation to be thoroughly respected, the perception of its strength needs to be matched by a perception of its goodness. It helps to be thought of as just, generous, conscientious, mindful of the opinion of others, even a little humble. In lots of little ways, Bush has given the world the impression that we’re not these things.

Kerry touched on some of this, noting that global leadership means inspiring more than fear. But he didn’t carry the respect theme explicitly into the context of Muslim opinion.

Doing so wouldn’t by itself amount to a strategy for the war on terrorism. But it would add a new dimension to the Democrats’ emerging critique of the president’s foreign policy - and a potent one. The plummeting regard for America in Muslim nations like Indonesia over the last few years is a well-documented fact. If voters can see the link between this and the security of their children - see that for every million Muslims who hate America, one will be willing to fly an airplane into a shopping mall - then Bush will have a lot of explaining to do. And existing criticisms of his policies will acquire new force. (Given how unpopular the Iraq war was known to be in the Muslim world, wasn’t the lack of postwar planning beyond inexcusable?)

The Kerry-Edwards ticket might also profit from the fact that much of this Muslim antipathy seems to be focused on Bush personally. (His unfavorability ratings in Morocco and Jordan are 90 percent and 96 percent, respectively.) Changing administrations - “rebranding” America - could help give us a fresh start.

Thoroughly addressing the issue of Muslim hatred would pose some risks. Kerry would have to stress that he’s willing to antagonize Muslims - or anyone else - when essential American principles or obligations are involved. And even that assurance wouldn’t wholly buffer him from right-wing flak.

But the very difficulty of taking on this issue is part of its virtue. Kerry’s biggest manhood problem has nothing to do with Vietnam or the war on terrorism. Rather, it’s the sense that he never attacks an issue unflinchingly - that he waffles on the tough ones, that his only constancy lies in the wordiness of his bromides. Maybe what he needs is to take a sensitive, complicated problem, lay down a core conviction, and stick with it through thick and thin.

By the way, Machiavelli might approve. Though he favored fear over love, he said that being feared and loved is the best situation of all. And failing that, a leader at least “ought to inspire fear in such a way that, if he does not win love, he avoids hatred.” If George W. Bush is too macho for Machiavelli, then surely John Kerry can make the case that Bush is too macho for America.

Robert Wright, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, is the author of “Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny.”

http://www.iht.com/bin/print.php?file=532228.html

Bush vows to revamp intelligence oversight
Christine Hauser/NYT NYT, AP
Tuesday, August 03, 2004

NEW YORK President George W. Bush announced Monday that he would establish the post of national intelligence director, one of the main recommendations of the 9/11 commission’s report, which called United States intelligence agencies collectively dysfunctional.

Speaking in the Rose Garden at the White House, Bush also said that he would adopt another recommendation the commission made last month - the creation of a national counterterrorism center. “We are a nation in danger,” Bush said.

The commission suggested that the new center conduct strategic analysis of intelligence, plan and assign intelligence operations and oversee what intelligence is collected.

“This new center will build on the analytical work - the really good analytical work - of the Terrorist Threat Integration Center,” Bush said in referring to an office that already exists, “and will become our government’s knowledge bank for information about known and suspected terrorists.”

“Today I am asking Congress to create the position of a national intelligence director,” he said. “The person in that office would be appointed by the president, with the advice and consent of the Senate, and will serve at the pleasure of the president.”

But the intelligence director will not be a cabinet post, he said, in a departure from what the 9/11 commission had urged.

“I don’t think the person should be a member of my cabinet,” the president said. “I will hire the person and I can fire the person.” At the same time, he said, “I don’t think that the office should be in the White House, however, I think it should be a stand-alone group to better coordinate.”

Currently, the director of central intelligence is both the overseer of the 15 intelligence agencies and the head of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Under the new system, Bush said, the CIA will be managed by a separate director. The new national intelligence director will oversee the foreign and domestic activity of the various intelligence agencies as the president’s “principal intelligence adviser.”

The White House is under pressure to act quickly on the commission’s findings, especially in light of recent warnings that Al Qaeda intends to strike before the November elections.

The Democratic presidential nominee, Senator John Kerry, has come out in favor of creating the post of national intelligence director, saying that if he were president he would enact many of the 9/11 commission’s recommendations immediately by executive order or other presidential action.

On Sunday, Kerry said that he supported making the new intelligence post a White House position because it would mean greater accountability. A sense of urgency to act on the 9/11 report has been evident on Capitol Hill, with senior members of both parties making plans for hearings. White House officials said last week that Bush and his senior aides were examining the extent and range of control of the intelligence position and the big issues like keeping it free from political interference. Bush did not say whether the new director would have budget authority over any agencies.

Kerry faults terror response

Kerry said Monday that Bush had responded too slowly to the terrorist threat and had adopted policies that have encouraged terrorism, The Associated Press reported from Grand Rapids, Michigan.

“I regret that the president has no sense of urgency,” Kerry said during a hastily called news conference following Bush’s announcement of his support for naming a national intelligence director and establishing a counterterrorism center.

Kerry welcomed Bush’s decision to embrace some of the 9/11 commission’s recommendations but argued that with the nation at war, the Republican incumbent and self-described “war president” should move more quickly.

Earlier in the day, in an interview on CNN, Kerry said the administration’s policies were “actually encouraging the recruitment of terrorists.” The administration has not reached out to other countries and the Muslim community, he said, and has not done enough to protect ports, chemical plants and nuclear facilities.

Bush rejected that criticism during his Rose Garden appearance, telling reporters, “It is a ridiculous notion to assert because the more the United States is on the offense more people want to hurt us.”

The New York Times
http://www.iht.com/bin/print.php?file=532253.html

If I Were President—Addressing the Democratic Deficit

By John Kerry

March/April 2003

Democrats must resist a new orthodoxy within our party—a politically stagnating shift that does a disservice to more than 75 years of history. That is the new conventional wisdom of consultants, pollsters, and strategists who argue that Democrats should be the party of domestic issues alone. 

They are wrong. As a party, Democrats need to talk about all the things that strengthen and protect the United States. We need to have a vision that extends to the world around us, and we should remember that this vision is as old as our party. Woodrow Wilson was elected president during a time of peace, but he led during a time of war. Franklin Roosevelt was elected to tackle the Great Depression, create Social Security, and put the United States back to work. But no one should forget that he did those things even as he responded to Pearl Harbor and marshaled the nation’s troops from Normandy to Iwo Jima. And John F. Kennedy didn’t try to change the subject of the debate when Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s vice president brought up foreign policy. Kennedy challenged the United States globally, insisting that the country do more and better, not because these things are easy but because they are hard.

It’s our turn again to talk about things that are hard.

SIDEBAR: John Kerry Profile
The war on terrorism is different than any war in history. Intelligence is this nation’s most important weapon but also its greatest vulnerability. It is now common knowledge that crucial intercepts from September 10, 2001, weren’t translated until two days later because of severe understaffing at U.S. intelligence agencies. As of January 2002, the U.S. Army had an average 44 percent shortfall in translators and interpreters in five critical languages: Arabic, Korean, Mandarin-Chinese, Persian-Farsi, and Russian. The State Department reported a 26 percent shortage of authorized translators and interpreters.

Americans’ security depends on helping the people of the Middle East see and act on a legitimate vision of peace.

To remedy this intelligence deficit, U.S. college campuses need to overcome a Vietnam-era mind-set that demonizes the CIA and FBI. To respond to the new threats, we must redouble our information-gathering efforts and make sure proper officials heed critical information, so that when we talk about preventing another September 11, we’re dealing in reality, not rhetoric. We also face critical choices in the makeup and structuring of the U.S. armed forces. Operations in Afghanistan, Kosovo, Bosnia, and the Persian Gulf have highlighted changes in military tactics and equipment needs. Outdated military equipment may please defense contractors, but it won’t win tomorrow’s battles. A modern military means smarter, more versatile equipment; better intelligence; advanced communications; long-range air power; and highly mobile ground forces.
Predictably, the Bush administration has talked about improvements but so far has failed to enact meaningful change. It is up to Democrats to understand and prepare for Fourth Generation warfare (fighting unconventional forces in unconventional ways) so our nation can be better prepared to wage and win the new war.

We must also change the way we interact with the world. For people who have suggested that unilateralism is “just the American way,” it’s time to acknowledge that, more and more, our allies are our eyes and ears around the globe and will play a critical role in intelligence operations. We need partners. We should work on our public and private diplomacy more thoughtfully, sensitively, and intensely to develop both.

I support the Bush administration’s goal of a regime change in Iraq. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is a renegade and outlaw who turned his back on the tough conditions of his surrender put in place by the United Nations in 1991. But the administration’s rhetoric has far exceeded its plans or groundwork. In fact, its single-mindedness, secrecy, and high-blown phrases have alienated our allies and threatened to undermine the stability of the region.

As both a soldier and a senator, I learned that when it comes to war, our goal must not be just regime change but a lasting peace. The United States has won the war in Afghanistan without securing the peace. This administration has failed to make its case on the international stage or to the American people for the rationale of starting the war or for the means of ending it. We cannot afford to put the security of our allies, the region, and ultimately ourselves at risk for the vague promises we have heard to date. We must do better.

American leadership means we must listen to the cultures and histories of other countries and work harder to build coalitions and partnerships. But for two years, the Bush administration has drifted from its chosen proactive message of disengagement to the reactive, mixed, and contradictory messages of reluctant engagement.

We can and must engage thoughtfully, strategically, and firmly. Nowhere is the need more clear or urgent than in North Korea.

But the Bush administration has offered only a merry-go-round policy: Bush and his advisers got up on their high horse, whooped and hollered, rode around in circles, and ended up right back where they’d started. By suspending the talks initiated by the Clinton administration, asking for talks but with new conditions, refusing to talk under the threat of nuclear blackmail, and then reversing that refusal as North Korea’s master of brinkmanship upped the ante, the administration sowed confusion and put the despot Kim Jong Il in the driver’s seat. By publicly taking military force, negotiations, and sanctions off the table, the administration tied its own hands behind its back.

Now, finally, the Bush administration is rightly working with allies in the region—acting multilaterally—to pressure Pyongyang. It’s gotten off the merry-go-round; the question is why one would ever want to be so driven by unilateralist dogma to get on in the first place. Draining the swamps of terrorists will require much greater involvement in the world. It must include significant investments in the education and human infrastructure of troubled countries. The globalization of the last decade proved that simple measures like buying books and teaching family planning can do much to expose, rebut, isolate, and defeat apostles of hate. These and other techniques are crucial to ensuring that children are no longer brainwashed into becoming suicide bombers and that terrorists are denied the ideological swamplands in which they thrive. Foreign aid must be increased and reformed to focus on education. We must give countries in the Middle East a reason to want peace. In the next few years, if changes aren’t made, the potential for violence in that region will only increase. If we fail to reach the children and the families wrecked by the violence of poverty and seclusion, the growing population of unemployed and unemployable kids will find in fanaticism a tragic answer to its problems. Americans’ security depends on helping the people of the Middle East see and act on a legitimate vision of peace.

It’s up to the United States to respond. Only the United States is in a position to lead the effort with other governments and private-sector partners to beat this pandemic; only the United States has the resources to make a difference. An American president once said, “We cannot . . . be content to rot by inches in ignoble ease within our own borders, taking no interest in what goes on beyond them, sunk in scrambling commercialism; heedless of the higher life, the life of aspiration, of toil and risk . . . We cannot sit huddled within our own borders and avow ourselves merely an assemblage of well-to-do hucksters who care nothing for what happens beyond.”

The Republican Party has in too many ways already disavowed the lessons of that Republican leader, Teddy Roosevelt. Our party can’t afford to repeat those mistakes, not when national greatness hangs in the balance. It is time for Democrats to make clear once more: We will never surrender or submit—not on any issue, and not on any question before this country.

 
If I Were President—Addressing the Democratic Deficit
SIDEBAR: John Kerry Profile
 
Sen. John Kerry (Massachusetts):

Kerry was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1984, after serving as lieutenant governor of Massachusetts for two years.

Kerry sits on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation; the Committee on Finance; the Committee on Foreign Relations; and the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship.

In 1989, as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations, Kerry oversaw the publication of a 1,166-page report titled “ Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy ,” which faulted U.S. government officials for turning a blind eye to the narcotics-trafficking activities of the Nicaraguan contras. Kerry joined with 44 other Senate Democrats to vote against the 1991 resolution on the Use of Force Against Iraq, arguing that economic sanctions should be given more time to work before “rushing headlong into war.” He supported granting the president fast-track trade negotiating authority in 1997 and voted in favor of permanent normal trade relations with China in 2000. In 1999, Kerry sided with 47 other senators in favor of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and also supported legislation that called for the deployment of national missile defense as soon as such a system is technologically feasible. He is the chair of the Center for Strategic and International Studies Task Force on Strengthening U.S. Leadership on HIV/AIDS; in 2000, he cosponsored legislation to facilitate the creation of a “trust fund” by the World Bank to raise money from governments, the private sector, and nongovernmental organizations as part of the global effort to prevent the spread of AIDS. Also in 2000, Kerry mediated negotiations in Cambodia to establish a tribunal to prosecute surviving leaders of the Khmer Rouge. In 2002, he voted with 28 other Senate Democrats and 48 Senate Republicans in favor of a resolution authorizing the Bush administration to use force to ensure Iraqi compliance with U.N. resolutions.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/files/story2164.php

Pas de Roses sans Soros
Publié le 30/07/04 sur infoguerre.com|  | 

C’était une belle histoire. Un beau pays perdu entre la Mer Noire et les montagnes du Caucase, pauvre mais d’importance stratégique, du nom de Géorgie était gouverné par un vieux président corrompu, survivant du Politburo soviétique, Edouard Shevarnadze. Face à lui, le jeune et dynamique leader de l’opposition Mikheïl Saakashvili qui allait libérer le pays du vilain Shevarnadze dans une exemplaire Révolution des Roses.

La Révolution des Roses fut déclenchée par la contestation des résultats des élections législatives de novembre 2003. Une partie seulement des votes était comptée et rendue publique, que déjà l’opposition dénonçait des fraudes massives destinées à donner une majorité parlementaire au parti du Président. La population géorgienne était désespérée et en colère contre les fléaux du chômage, de l’inflation galopante, des coupures incessantes de gaz et d’électricité. Mais il fallut attendre les deux derniers jours précédant la chute de Shevarnadze pour que les manifestations rallient enfin les grandes foules sur la place centrale de la capitale Tbilissi.

Le reste, nous l’avons vécu en direct sur CNN. Le beau et courageux Saakashvili qui prend d’assaut le Parlement une rose à la main et dépose le méchant Président Shevarnadze.

La fleur délicate, la jeunesse du héro et son pacifisme à la Gandhi firent de la Révolution des Roses géorgienne une belle histoire qui pourrait en inspirer d’autres…

Quelques faits qui ont étrangement échappé aux fins limiers de CNN :

- Saakashvili est diplômé en droit de l’Université américaine de Columbia (1994) et titulaire d’un doctorat de sciences juridiques de l’Université George Washington (1995). C’est à cette époque qu’il développe de nombreux contacts dans la classe politique américaine ;
- 80% des membres du nouveau gouvernement formé par Saakashvili après son élection triomphale à la Présidence de la République en janvier 2004 ont étudié et/ou travaillé aux Etats-Unis ; la plupart d’entre eux pour la Fondation Soros et l’agence américaine d’aide au développement USAID, notoirement très liée au Département d’Etat ;

- A la tête de l’opposition, on retrouve le mouvement de jeunesse ‘Kmara !’ (« Ca suffit ! » en géorgien) dont les méthodes, les slogans et les drapeaux sont calqués sur le mouvement yougoslave ‘Otpor’, fer de lance de la Révolution qui mit un terme au régime Milosevic. En fait de mouvement de jeunesse, ‘Kmara !’ est une structure issue d’un projet financé par la Fondation Soros à hauteur de USD 700.000 et visant à une « mobilisation citoyenne de la société civile ».

- Six mois passés en Yougoslavie ont permis à Saakashvili de se familiariser avec la méthodologie de la Révolution de velours ; lui et d’autres jeunes politiciens d’Ukraine, de Moldavie, d’Arménie, d’Azerbaïdjan, etc, ont été formés à la « transition démocratique accélérée » dans un centre situé à 70 km de Belgrade ;

- Autre personnage récurrent de cette belle histoire, l’ambassadeur américain en Géorgie, Richard Miles avait précédemment occupé les mêmes fonctions en Azerbaïdjan (1992-1993), en Yougoslavie (1996-1999) et en Bulgarie (1999-2001) où chaque fois des changements politiques spectaculaires amènent au pouvoir, soit par l’élection soit par la révolution, des régimes favorables aux Etats-Unis et à leurs intérêts ;

- Afin d’interrompre le discours de Shevarnadze devant le Parlement et de mettre en fuite le vieux Président, Saakashvili ne s’en remet pas qu’à la seule rose qui a fait sa gloire, mais aussi à un solide gilet pare-balles ainsi qu’à un groupe de gardes du corps bien armés qui l’aideront ce jour-là à pénétrer dans l’enceinte pourtant bouclée du Parlement ;

- A la seconde où était annoncée en direct sur CNN la nouvelle de la démission du Président Shevarnadze (avant même d’être relayée par les médias géorgiens !), un imposant feu d’artifice spontané était tiré depuis les hauteurs de Tbilissi ;

- Afin de soutenir l’objectif affiché par les nouvelles autorités géorgiennes de lutter contre la corruption dans la haute fonction publique, de grandes sociétés privées américaines (USD 3, 000,000) et Georges Soros lui-même (USD 2 ,000,000) vont financer le paiement des salaires du Président Saakashvili, du premier ministre Zhvania et du Président de l’Assemblée Burjanadze (USD 1,500) ainsi que ceux des ministres du gouvernement (USD 1, 200) .

Après cette dernière réussite de la Révolution des Roses en Géorgie, Georges Soros déclare ouvertement qu’il souhaiterait étendre l’expérience du changement de régime démocratique et pacifique au continent africain… En attendant, on scrute avec impatience la nomination de Richard Miles à son prochain poste diplomatique.

Dana Darbo

ROBERT SCHEER
An Excuse-Spouting Bush Is Busted by 9/11 Report
Robert Scheer

July 27, 2004

Busted! Like a teenager whose beer bash is interrupted by his parents’ early return home, President Bush’s nearly three years of bragging about his “war on terror” credentials has been exposed by the bipartisan 9/11 commission as nothing more than empty posturing.

Without dissent, five prominent Republicans joined an equal number of their Democratic Party peers in stating unequivocally that the Bush administration got it wrong, both in its lethargic response to an unprecedented level of warnings during what the commission calls the “Summer of Threat,” as well as in its inclusion of Iraq in the war on terror.

Although the language of the commission’s report was carefully couched to obtain a bipartisan consensus, the indictment of this administration surfaces on almost every page.

Bush was not the first U.S. president to play footsie with Muslim extremists in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, nor was the Clinton administration without fault in its fitful and ineffective response to the Al Qaeda threat. But there was simply no excuse for the near-total indifference of the new president and his top Cabinet officials to strenuous warnings from the outgoing Clinton administration and the government’s counter-terrorism experts that something terrible was coming, fast and hard, from Al Qaeda. Osama bin Laden’s gang, they said repeatedly, was planning “near-term attacks,” which Al Qaeda operatives expected “to have dramatic consequences of catastrophic proportions.”

As early as May 2001, the FBI was receiving tips that Bin Laden supporters were planning attacks in the U.S., possibly including the hijacking of planes. On May 29, White House counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke wrote national security advisor Condoleezza Rice that “when these attacks [on Israeli or U.S. facilities] occur, as they likely will, we will wonder what more we could have done to stop them.” At the end of June, the commission wrote, “the intelligence reporting consistently described the upcoming attacks as occurring on a calamitous level.” In early July, Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft was told “that preparations for multiple attacks [by Al Qaeda] were in late stages or already complete and that little additional warning could be expected.” By month’s end, “the system was blinking red” and could not “get any worse,” then-CIA Director George Tenet told the 9/11 commission.

It was at this point, of course, that George W. Bush began the longest presidential vacation in 32 years. On the very first day of his visit to his Texas ranch, Aug. 6, Bush received the now-infamous two-page intelligence alert titled, “Bin Laden Determined to Attack in the United States.” Yet instead of returning to the capital to mobilize an energetic defensive posture, he spent an additional 27 days away as the government languished in summer mode, in deep denial.

“In sum,” said the 9/11 commission report, “the domestic agencies never mobilized in response to the threat. They did not have the direction, and did not have a plan to institute. The borders were not hardened. Transportation systems were not fortified. Electronic surveillance was not targeted against a domestic threat. State and local law enforcement were not marshaled to augment the FBI’s efforts. The public was not warned.”

In her public testimony to the commission, Rice argued that the Aug. 6 briefing concerned vague “historical information based on old reporting,” adding that “there was no new threat information.” When the commission forced the White House to release the document, however, this was exposed as a lie: The document included explicit FBI warnings of “suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.” Furthermore, this briefing was only one of 40 on the threat of Bin Laden that the president received between Jan. 20 and Sept. 11, 2001.

Bush, the commission report also makes clear, compounded U.S. vulnerability by totally misleading Americans about the need to invade Iraq as a part of the “war on terror.”

For those, like Vice President Dick Cheney, who continue to insist that the jury is still out on whether Al Qaeda and Iraq were collaborators, the commission’s report should be the final word, finding after an exhaustive review that there is no evidence that any of the alleged contacts between Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein “ever developed into a collaborative operational relationship. Nor have we seen evidence indicating that Iraq cooperated with Al Qaeda in developing or carrying out any attacks against the United States.”

So, before 9/11, incompetence and sloth. And after? Much worse: a war without end on the wrong battlefield.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-scheer27jul27.story

The Metrosexual Superpower

By Parag Khanna

July/August 2004
The stylish European Union struts past the bumbling United States on the catwalk of global diplomacy.

According to Michael Flocker’s 2003 bestseller, The Metrosexual Guide to Style: A Handbook for the Modern Man, the trendsetting male icons of the 21st century must combine the coercive strengths of Mars and the seductive wiles of Venus. Put simply, metrosexual men are muscular but suave, confident yet image-conscious, assertive yet clearly in touch with their feminine sides. Just consider British soccer star David Beckham. He is married to former Spice Girl Victoria “Posh” Adams, but his combination of athleticism and cross-dressing make him a sex symbol to both women and men worldwide, not to mention the inspiration for the 2002 hit movie Bend It Like Beckham. Substance, Beckham shows, is nothing without style.

Geopolitics is much the same. American neoconservatives such as Robert Kagan look down upon feminine, Venus-like Europeans, gibing their narcissistic obsession with building a postmodern, bureaucratic paradise. The United States, by contrast, supposedly carries the mantle of masculine Mars, boldly imposing freedom in the world’s nastiest neighborhoods. But by cleverly deploying both its hard power and its sensitive side, the European Union (EU) has become more effective—and more attractive—than the United States on the catwalk of diplomatic clout. Meet the real New Europe: the world’s first metrosexual superpower.

Metrosexuals always know how to dress for the occasion (or mission). Spreading peace across Eurasia serves U.S. interests, but it’s best done by donning Armani pinstripes rather than U.S. Army fatigues. After the fall of Soviet communism, conservative U.S. thinkers feared a united Germany vying with Russia for hegemony in Central Europe. Yet, by brandishing only a slick portfolio of economic incentives, the EU has incorporated many of the former Soviet republics and satellites in the Baltics and Eastern Europe. Even Turkey is freshening up with eau d’Europe. Ankara resisted Washington’s pressure to provide base rights for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. But to get backstage in Brussels, it has had to smooth out its more unseemly blemishes—abolishing the death penalty, taking steps to resolve the Cyprus dispute, and introducing laws to protect its Kurdish minority.

Metrosexuals may spend a long time standing in front of the mirror, but they never shop alone. Stripping off stale national sovereignty (that’s so last century), Europeans now parade their “pooled power,” the new look for this geopolitical season. As a political, economic, and military union with some 450 million citizens, a $9 trillion economy, and armies surpassing 1.6 million soldiers, Europe is now a whole greater than the sum of its parts.

Indeed, Europe actually contributes more to U.S. foreign policy goals than the U.S. government—and does so far more fashionably. Robert Cooper, one of Britain’s former defense gurus now shaping Europe’s common foreign policy, argues that Europe’s “magnetic allure” compels countries to rewrite their laws and constitutions to meet European standards. The United States conceives of power primarily in military terms, thus confusing presence with influence. By contrast, Europeans understand power as overall leverage. As a result, the EU is the world’s largest bilateral aid donor, providing more than twice as much aid to poor countries as the United States, and it is also the largest importer of agricultural goods from the developing world, enhancing its influence in key regions of instability. Through massive deployments of “soft power” (such as economic clout and cultural appeal) Europe has made hard power less necessary. After expanding to 25 members, the EU accounts for nearly half of the world’s outward foreign direct investment and exerts greater leverage than the United States over pivotal countries such as Brazil and Russia. As more oil-producing nations consider trading in euros, Europe will gain greater influence in the international marketplace. Even rogue states swoon over Europe’s allure; just recall how Libya’s Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi greeted British Prime Minister Tony Blair during a recent meeting in Tripoli. “You are looking good,” gushed Libya’s strongman. “You are still young.”

Brand Europe is taking over. From environmental sustainability and international law to economic development and social welfare, European views are more congenial to international tastes and more easily exported than their U.S. variants. Even the Bush administration’s new strategy toward the “Greater Middle East” is based on the Helsinki model, which was Europe’s way of integrating human rights standards into collective security institutions. Furthermore, regional organizations such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Mercosur, and the African Union are redesigning their institutions to look more like the EU. Europe’s flashy new symbol of power, the Airbus 380, will soon strut on runways all over Asia. And the euro is accepted even where they don’t take American Express.

But don’t be deceived by the metrosexual superpower’s pleatless pants—Europe hasn’t lost touch with its hard assets. Even without a centralized military command structure, the EU has recently led military operations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Macedonia, and it will increase troop deployments to support German and British forces in stabilizing Afghanistan. European countries already provide 10 times more peacekeepers to U.N. operations than the United States. In late 2004, the EU will take over all peacekeeping and policing operations in Bosnia and Herzegovina from NATO, and Europe’s 60,000-troop Rapid Reaction Force will soon be ready to deploy around the world.

In the fight against terrorism, Europe also displays the right ensemble of strengths. Europeans excel at human intelligence, which requires expert linguists and cultural awareness. French espionage agencies have reportedly infiltrated al Qaeda cells, and German and Spanish law enforcement efforts have led to the capture of numerous al Qaeda operatives. After the March 2004 terrorist attack in Madrid, Spain’s incoming prime minister immediately declared his country would “return to Europe,” signaling his opposition to the Bush administration’s war on terror. Indeed, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s “New Europe” is already passé, shorter lived than the bellbottom revival.

To some observers, the EU may always be little more than a cheap superpower knockoff with little substance to show but a common multilingual passport. But after 60 years of dressing up, Europe has revealed its true 21st-century orientation. Just as metrosexuals are redefining masculinity, Europe is redefining old notions of power and influence. Expect Bend It Like Brussels to play soon in capital cities worldwide.

Parag Khanna is a fellow in global governance at the Brookings Institution.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/files/story2583.php

>> Pourquoi ne pas proposer un véritable forum de discussion (organisé), où le débat et l’échange entre lecteurs pourait avoir lieu ?
Merci
François ;o)  >>

quand on regarde la tenue des textes sur le forum du monde ou psyops & spinmeisters professionels sont plus que presents pour aliener les conversations, je n aimerais pas que cela se produise ici aussi..
les redacteurs ont autre chose a faire..
ici l air est frais, pas besoin de l empester avec ce genre d oportunistes..

a moins que quelqu un a une soluce pour faire le tri avec ce genre de trolls.

Europe must take itself seriously, says top Brussels envoy

29.07.2004 - 17:33 CET |
By Honor Mahony EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS -

The European Union has to learn to take itself seriously before it can expect the United States to treat it as an equal, the outgoing EU ambassador to the US has warned.

Speaking before the Foreign Affairs Committee in the European Parliament on Thursday (29 July), Günter Burghardt said that getting Washington to treat the 25-nation bloc as a partner “depends on how seriously we take ourselves” adding “that is something only we can manage”.

The German diplomat said that while there is an overall general will by the EU to “enter into a partnership of equals” it is undermined by the fact that some member states continue to accord bilateral interests more importance.

Refusing to comment on whether George W. Bush will be re-elected in November and what it would mean for transatlantic relations, Mr Burghardt said that, in 2005, the ties should be renewed anyway.

Renewing the ties
He said that the transatlantic agenda has not been updated since 1995 although since then the European Union has undergone its biggest enlargement ever and agreed a new Constitution.

He says the Constitution will allow Europe to be taken more seriously as now the EU is represented by the head of the EU Presidency, the European Commission President and three foreign ministers - from the EU presidency at the time, Chris Patten (external relations commissioner) and Javier Solana (EU High Representative).

Under the new Constitution, Europe’s foreign policy will be the domain of the new EU foreign minister.

Extreme neo-cons out?
The ambassador, who is expected to be replaced later this year by former Irish prime minister John Bruton, does not deny that there are, and will continue to be, fundamental differences between the two sides.

One of them is the two different attitudes to the “notion of sovereignty”. The US sees its sovereignty as “unlimited” he said and this will not change whereas the EU is more about “joint sovereignty” and “multilateralism”.

The vast majority of the questions Mr Burghardt received from MEPs centred around the idea that Washington and the US President do not take Europe seriously and whether the ordinary American had any interest in Europe.

By way of reply, he said there is still a huge amount of “good will” among Americans towards Europe.

He added that the “extreme” neo-conservatives “are no longer setting the agenda” and that those people who spoke about new and old Europe (famously US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld) have “suddenly dried up”.

http://euobserver.com/?aid=17028&rk=1