Clarke made voters more skeptical: Pinkerton

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Clarke made voters more skeptical
James P. Pinkerton



http://www.newsday.com/news/ny-vppin303729091mar30,0,6078475.column?coll=ny-news-wire-utility
March 30, 2004


To put it bluntly, voters will wonder whether Bush would once again make short shrift of the battle against al-Qaida to push a further grandiose "transformation" of the Muslim world. Would an "Operation Iranian Freedom," say, be the centerpiece of a second term?

Detractors have noted that Clarke didn't offer any criticism of the Iraq war in his 15 hours of private testimony to the 9/11 commission prior to his public appearance last Wednesday. But as he said in his televised testimony, he wasn't asked. And that's what is so revealing: Even the Republican investigators on the 9/11 commission, closely questioning Clarke, never even thought to ask about Iraq. That's how separate "terror" and "Iraq" are in the minds of Washington insiders.

So Clarke merely connected a few more dots in what was already a pointillist portrait of the administration's switcheroo after 9/11, in which war against Osama bin Laden changed into war against Saddam Hussein. As Clarke said on "Meet the Press" Sunday, "We diverted resources from Afghanistan for the war on Iraq." Indeed, only now are Arabic-speaking Special Forces going back to Afghanistan to look for bin Laden.

But Clarke went further. He told NBC's Tim Russert that his ultimate message is "about how going into Iraq hurt the war on terror." As he has argued, the diversion into Iraq not only gave bin Laden a breather, but allowed al-Qaida to recruit and spread its tentacles further - into places such as Madrid. Meanwhile, 130,000 Americans are bogged down in Iraq, fighting innumerable "terrorists" who didn't have any U.S. targets in their crosshairs until Uncle Sam came calling.

So yes, Clarke has taken hits. But the same Newsweek poll shows that 44 percent approve of Bush's handling of the Iraq war, whereas 50 percent disapprove. And that's Bush's problem this November.