Are We Safer?
Kissell Points to Failed National Tests, Public Frustration
Fayetteville Observer Agrees
The Charlotte Observer
Sunday, September 10, 2006
www.charlotte.com
Iraq called key in war on terror
But critics say conflict takes resources from larger struggle for safety
JIM MORRILL
jmorrill@charlotteobserver.com
In the run-up to Monday's 9-11 anniversary -- and November's elections -- President Bush and his allies are on the offensive to persuade Americans that their policies in Iraq are essential to win the war on terror.
But in the Carolinas, as around the country, that's not an easy sell. Even within his own party.
"If we had not gone into Iraq, and we had sent our troops and invested ... money into going after bin Laden, we would have made some strides in the war on terror," says U.S. Rep. Walter Jones, a Pitt County Republican. "But the diversion of going into Iraq has taken blood and money."
Critics, such as Jones, say the war in Iraq has hampered the larger struggle that started when the twin towers fell five years ago. Bush says that far from being a diversion, Iraq is the front line of the global war on terror. And two months before crucial mid-term elections, he has sought to push national security to the front of voters' minds.
"It's an echo of the strategies that Republicans followed in 2002 and 2004, and this time it will probably be even more pronounced since Republicans have little alternative," says David Rohde, a political scientist at Duke University. "The only issue on which the Republicans have a noticeable advantage over the Democrats is handling the war on terror."
A Gallup/USA Today poll last month showed 55 percent of Americans support Bush's handling of the war on terror. Another, by the Pew Research Center, found 57 percent worry that Democrats would weaken the U.S. hand.
But Bush would find other numbers less favorable.
• A CNN poll released this week found 58 percent of Americans oppose the Iraq war; 53 percent don't see it as part of the war on terror.
• Sixty-five percent in an August CBS/New York Times poll disapproved of Bush's handling of the Iraq war.
• And a survey last month by the Raleigh-based Civitas Institute found 52 percent of people in North Carolina -- a state Bush twice won handily -- disapprove of his job performance.
Faced with such numbers, and with many experts predicting GOP losses in Congress, Bush has gone on the offensive with a series of speeches. Monday, he'll appear at memorial ceremonies at each 9-11 site.
The president has compared terrorist leaders to Adolf Hitler. GOP Chairman Ken Mehlman has called war critics "defeato-crats." Some Democrats, meanwhile, compare Iraq to Vietnam.
"I don't think either analogy is right," says Dan Carter, a historian at the University of South Carolina.
Though Vietnam was also a drawn-out, unpopular war, there are key differences, he says. For one: Iraq's strategic importance affects America's economic and diplomatic interests in a way Vietnam never did.
Carter says the analogy to World War II -- a fight against nation states -- "doesn't pass the smell test."
"It creates a straw man in the sense of linking the war in Iraq, which has just been a fiasco, with the war on terrorism," Carter says.
War and terror are top issues in many congressional races, including the one in North Carolina's 8th District, which runs from Charlotte to Fayetteville.
Republican Rep. Robin Hayes of Concord says administration policies have helped prevent further terror attacks on U.S. soil.
His opponent, Democrat Larry Kissell of Biscoe in Montgomery County, says the U.S. hasn't done enough to secure American borders and ports while putting "the lion's share" of attention on Iraq.
Some say tying that war to the war on terror won't be easy for the president.
Donald Kettl, director of the Fels Institute of Government at the University of Pennsylvania, calls it "a war more and more difficult to win and less and less connected to the problems that prompted it."
"The administration is trying to make, `You're-either-for-us-or-against-us' a domestic issue," he says. "My sense is that is not working because the war in Iraq is going so badly."
8th District Candidates on the War and Terror
HAS THE TERROR THREAT RISEN OR DECLINED SINCE 9-11?
Robin Hayes, R
"The terror threat has certainly declined ... We have not been attacked on our shores, and a big part of that is we have been on the offensive in Afghanistan and Iraq ... and put our heads together and really gone after weaknesses in all of our different systems."
Larry Kissell, D
"You would like to think that we're safer. But the one national test that we've had about what we've learned since 9-11 about crises was (Hurricane) Katrina. And obviously we failed that very badly ... We're putting a lion's share of our attention and resources into Iraq when we should recognize that it's an international war on terror."
IS THE IRAQ WAR PART OF THE SOLUTION OR THE PROBLEM?
Hayes
"The war in Iraq has obviously got to be part of the solution. ... How would you separate it? The people coming in from Syria, Chechnya and all around the world -- are they just visiting tourists?"
Kissell
"It's been a huge diversion for us ... We have accomplished our missions in Iraq. We phased in in a year and we've got to phase out in a year ... There were no terrorists there before we went in. We're killing terrorists there, but we're gaining terrorists there, too."
ARE WE WINNING THE WAR ON TERROR?
Hayes
"Yes. I know where we started, I know where we've been, and I know where we're going ... Even though the road is very rough, extremely bloody, I see us getting there."
Kissell
"We are winning the war on terror, but I think we can do much better at making ourselves safer."
SHOULD DETAINEES BE ABLE TO SEE CLASSIFIED EVIDENCE IN A TRIAL?
Hayes
"Certainly, prisoners have rights. But these are not ordinary prisoners. These are people who've given up conventional, lawful lifestyles. The rule of law is not in their vocabulary. ...You don't go out of your way to give them protections that some semblance of normal citizens would get."
Kissell
"We have to be careful in how we treat these terrorists to make sure our soldiers down the road are not treated harshly themselves. We can play hardball and maintain our identity as Americans and still win on this ... I want to make sure we do it in a way America maintains its moral authority and role as an honest broker."
###
Fayetteville Observer
Sunday, September 10, 2006
www.fayettevillenc.com
Our View: On the anniversary of 9/11, we see more frustration than success.
Five years later, the images remain, seared into our national consciousness. Four airliners, filled with passengers, seized by crazed terrorists, plowing into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field. In an instant, life changed for every American.
We were at war in a way we never imagined, battling a shadowy enemy with no uniform and allegiance to no country. President Bush assures us we're winning. We're not so sure. Every time a "high-ranking al-Qaida leader" is plucked off a street in Iraq or a mountain in Pakistan, another takes his place. Every time a major attack is foiled, we get evidence of others. It will be a long war, with fierce battles in still-unknowable places to come.
Some, including former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, say we're fighting World War III. Perhaps. But it is a strange kind of war, with ill-defined battlefields and an enemy dispersed over several continents — including our own.
The White House report on the war — the "National Strategy for Combating Terrorism" — was released last week. "America is safer, but not yet safe," the report said. "Our effective counterterrorist efforts, in part, have forced terrorists to modify their ways of doing business. Today, the principal terrorist enemy confronting the United States is a transnational movement of extremist organizations, networks and individuals."
While the White House focused on anti-terror successes, other groups monitoring terrorist activities report that since 9/11, al-Qaida has grown from 20,000 to about 50,000 members. Terror attacks around the world are increasing and there are more insurgents than ever in Iraq and Afghanistan. At the same time, our military is stretched thin, soldiers exhausted and equipment battered from frequent deployments and a frustrating, ill-planned war in Iraq. An unbiased world view of terrorism shows we have fought the enemy to a draw. We are not winning.
We have grown accustomed to color-coded airport warnings and occasional compromises of our personal privacy. We have become wary of travel and even more wary of Middle-Easterners and Muslims, even though we know only a tiny fraction of them feel ill will toward us. We have let fear creep into our lives, despite our vows to the contrary.
Unlike the first two world wars, we can't see the end of this one, nor have we conceived the winning strategy. Five years after the 9/11 attacks, we have incremental gains in intelligence and homeland security. Five years after the jets sliced the twin towers, we still seek an effective, worldwide force joining scores of nations in a battle to end terrorism.
Five years of frustration is enough. We need new strategy, fueled by bipartisan cooperation in Washington and a military effort directed by generals, not politicians. The war is winnable. But not by stubbornly following a trail we have followed for five years.
