Ronald Brownstein
The Los Angeles Times
June 21, 2004
During a Senate debate last week, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) reached for the
most powerful weapon in any argument over national security for nearly the last
three years.
The issue was a proposal from Sen. Christopher J. Dodd
(D-Conn.) to bar private contractors from interrogating military prisoners.
Dodd played his high card by arguing that such a ban could reduce the odds of
another black eye for America such as the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. But
Sessions trumped him by suggesting the ban might increase the chances of another
terrorist attack such as Sept. 11.
What if, Sessions asked, "the
very best interrogator in the United States of America" was not a military
officer but a retired detective who had "the ability to [obtain]
information that can save thousands of lives" through skilled interrogation?
Could America really deny itself an asset that might help prevent another
terrorist attack?
Partly because of that argument, the Senate on
Wednesday rejected Dodd's amen dment. That was little surprise. Since the
Sept. 11 attacks, the best way to build support for any national security
initiative has been to portray it as a new line of defense against a repeat of
that tragic day.
That was the justification for the Senate passage of
the Patriot Act, which greatly expanded Washington's ability to monitor
suspected terrorists. Those arguments drove the creation of the Department of
Homeland Security a year later.
The same logic turns up more explicitly
in memos from Justice and Defense department attorneys before the Abu Ghraib
scandal loosening the limits on acceptable coercion during
interrogation.
Writing to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on March
6, 2003, top Pentagon lawyers acknowledged that "even in war, limits to the use
and extent of force apply." But citing Justice Department memos, they concluded
"the nation's right to self-defense has been triggered" by the Sept. 11
attacks. And that meant harm to those under interrogation could be justi fied
"to prevent further attacks on the United States by the Al Qaeda terrorist
network."
This argument, of course, made its most dramatic appearance in
President Bush's drive to win support for war with Iraq. The report last week
from the staff of the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks
rekindled the debate over whether Bush misled the nation before the war about
the extent of the links between Al Qaeda and Iraq.
While finding
indications of some contacts between Al Qaeda and Iraq, the commission concluded
that Saddam Hussein "apparently never responded" to requests from Osama bin
Laden for help in acquiring weapons and establishing training camps. In all,
the staff said it did not find evidence of a "collaborative relationship"
between Iraq and Al Qaeda.
These conclusions have opened the
administration to charges that Bush, and especially Vice President Dick Cheney,
exaggerated the previous connections between the dictator and the terrorist.
But Al Qaeda's role in the president's case for war was always more about the
alliance that might develop in the future than the cooperation that had occurred
in the past. Like Sessions, Bush leaned heavily on the conditional and those
two resonant words: what if.
Regardless of whether Hussein
cooperated with Al Qaeda in the past, Bush often suggested, what if he
did so in the future. "Secretly, and without fingerprints, he could provide one
of his hidden weapons to terrorists, or help them develop their own," Bush
declared before the invasion. "Imagine those 19 hijackers [on Sept.
11] with other weapons and other plans — this time armed by Saddam
Hussein."
The defeat of Dodd's amendment last week shows that the "what
if" argument still has power. But there are signs a correction is setting
in.
Hardly anyone disagrees that the world changed on Sept. 11; the
grim evidence continues to arrive in outrages such as the killing of American
Paul M. Johnson Jr. in Saudi Arabia on Frida y.
But much of this
year's election debate is pivoting on how much the world changed on Sept. 11
— and whether, in its responses, the administration has moved too far from
the values, principles and strategies that guided America before.
It's
no exaggeration to say that the central issue before the voters in 2004 is
whether Bush's responses to the attack — from the Patriot Act to the
invasion of Iraq — represent an appropriate answer to Sept. 11 or an
overreaction that has carried the nation into dangerous waters.
To a
degree unimaginable before the Iraq war, critics are now forcefully pressing
that latter case. Robert V. Keeley, ambassador to Greece under Ronald Reagan,
was part of a group of 27 high-ranking former officials called Diplomats and
Military Commanders for Change who issued a statement last week charging that
Bush's policies had left the nation dangerously isolated in the world.
"It has become a mantra that 9/11 changed everything," Keeley said a t the
group's news conference. "In fact it didn't. The fundamentals of protecting
… our national security have not changed…. What has happened is that
mantra has been an excuse to say the president can do anything he wants because
… 9/11 changed everything."
Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts,
the presumed Democratic presidential candidate, probably wouldn't go that far.
Through his support for expanding the size of the military, increasing homeland
security spending and redirecting NATO toward combating terrorism, he's made
clear he thinks Sept. 11 does demand important changes in America's
priorities.
But in his criticism of the Patriot Act and the way Bush
went to war in Iraq, Kerry is clearly signaling that he would tilt away from
some of the most aggressive elements of the administration's response to Sept.
11.
What if, Kerry seems to be arguing, Bush's answers to the
toughest "what if" questions have actually made America less secure? It's too
early to say how America will answer that question, but already a safe bet that
nothing else will shape the result in November more.
*