Criticism of Leadership Tests Bush’s Best Asset

With polls showing most voters unhappy about President Bush’s handling of the economy and divided over his course in Iraq, the president’s strongest asset in the 2004 campaign has been the unwavering sense among most Americans that he is providing resolute leadership against terrorism.

But two days of public testimony before the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks -- along with the release this week of a critical book by the president’s former top counterterrorism advisor -- have offered the most forceful challenge yet to Bush’s record in combating the terrorist threat.

The allegations from former advisor Richard Clarke -- that Bush slighted the war against terrorism to focus on Iraq -- dovetail so closely with so many Democratic criticisms of the president that some party strategists believe this week’s events could mark a turning point in public attitudes about the administration’s national security record.

“Their entire presidency is based on whatever leadership they can point to as a result of Sept. 11,” said one senior Democratic strategist familiar with the thinking inside the campaign of Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry, that party’s presumptive nominee. “If the credibility of that leadership is questioned, his entire presidency hangs in the balance.”

But most Republicans remain cautiously optimistic that this week’s events won’t significantly erode public approval of Bush’s handling of the terrorist threat. They base their view largely on the belief that that confidence is rooted in real-world events -- the toppling of the Taliban in Afghanistan and of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and, above all, the absence of additional attacks inside the United States since that searing day in 2001.

Some independent analysts agree that those critical of Bush’s terrorism tactics face the same problem the president does on the economy: Voters’ actual experiences, rather than arguments from either side, are most likely to shape their attitudes.

“People aren’t going to judge Bush on the basis of what the commission says; they are going to judge him on the basis of performance,” said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, an independent polling organization.

Even so, Clarke’s allegations -- seconded to some extent by reports released by the commission staff and comments from the panel members -- have raised difficult questions on an issue the administration expected to be an unalloyed benefit.

“It seems likely now that Bush will have to spend more time and money shoring himself up on a front where he had earlier presumed he was virtually untouchable,” said Jim Jordan, a spokesman for America Coming Together, a Democratic group.

Indeed, in the ferocity of Republican efforts to discredit Clarke this week, Democrats saw clear evidence of White House concern.

After Tuesday’s unusually civil first day of hearings before the independent commission, the atmosphere changed sharply Wednesday as several Republican members aggressively challenged Clarke’s credibility during his testimony.

As if to underscore the partisan backdrop, the liberal group MoveOn.org announced late Wednesday that it would sponsor a television ad next week built on Clarke’s criticism of the president.

Even the president’s staunchest critics, such as Clarke, did not argue at the hearings that the Bush administration could have prevented the Sept. 11 attacks.

But Bush’s defenders and detractors differed sharply over whether, in the months before the tragedy, the administration had grasped the severity of the terrorist threat and moved quickly enough to respond. Their exchanges over the last 48 hours are likely to echo through election day.

Top administration officials, including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, argued that given the difficulties of staffing a new administration, they moved as quickly as possible to develop a strategy for debilitating Al Qaeda.

Powell said that while aides to President Clinton extensively briefed the incoming Bush team about the Al Qaeda threat, they did not present the new administration with a specific plan for combating terrorism.

The Bush administration’s plan, envisioning escalating pressure on the Taliban and Al Qaeda, was approved at a “principals’ meeting” of top administration officials on Sept. 4, 2001, the commission said in a staff report.

But Clarke testified, and the commission staff confirmed, that on Jan. 25, 2001 -- five days after Bush was inaugurated -- he presented national security advisor Condoleezza Rice with two planning documents from the Clinton administration that called for a series of steps to pressure Al Qaeda.

In both his book and his testimony to the commission, Clarke said he grew increasingly frustrated over the administration’s refusal either to convene a Cabinet-level meeting to plot an anti-terrorism strategy or to allow him to brief the president.

The pace of the administration’s effort to design a counterterrorism strategy drew criticism over the two days not only from Clarke, but also from panel members Slade Gorton, a former Republican senator from Washington state, and Jamie S. Gorelick, a former deputy attorney general under Clinton.

“What made you think ... that we had the luxury even of seven months before we could make any kind of response?” Gorton thundered at Rumsfeld on Tuesday.

At Wednesday’s hearing, former Democratic Sen. Bob Kerrey -- who on Tuesday had most sharply criticized Clinton’s response to Al Qaeda -- said that even the plan approved Sept. 4 was far too meek and meager.

“I was briefed this morning on that plan, and I would say fortunately for the administration it’s classified, because there’s almost nothing in it,” Kerrey said acidly.

These competing portrayals of Bush’s performance undoubtedly will cascade into the escalating campaign debate.

Most immediately, Bush allies appear likely to escalate their efforts to tarnish Clarke, who held top-level national security jobs for Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush, as well as for Clinton and the current president. Three Republicans on the commission sharply questioned Clarke’s credibility during his testimony, mostly citing previous comments in which he had not criticized Bush.

The White House on Wednesday authorized the release of an unattributed “background” briefing Clarke gave to Fox News Channel in 2002 in which he praised the Bush response to terrorism and said that “there was no plan on Al Qaeda that was passed from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration.”

“This shatters the cornerstones of Mr. Clarke’s assertions,” White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.

Pressed about the document at the hearing by commission member James R. Thompson, a former Republican governor of Illinois, Clarke said his remarks to Fox did not conflict with his book or testimony, noting that “when you are on the staff of the president of the United States, you try to make his policies look as good as possible.”

Clarke’s broad charge that the administration neglected terrorism before Sept. 11 and did too little to safeguard the country afterward -- largely because it placed a higher priority on invading Iraq -- could provide a powerful reinforcement for Democratic attacks on Bush’s national security record.

Still, even some Democratic strategists acknowledged that it may be difficult for Kerry to focus too much on the period before Sept. 11 because the commission, unlike Clarke, seems intent on also criticizing Clinton for his response to Al Qaeda.

And while Kerry already has signaled his intention to forcefully question whether Bush has done enough to solidify America’s defenses against terrorism since Sept. 11, Republicans remain eager to provoke a debate with Kerry over the best way to protect the country.

“The fact is, John Kerry said himself that he is uncomfortable talking about our approach to terrorism in the context of war; he believes this is a law enforcement matter,” said Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie. “We have done law enforcement ... and we are done doing ‘a law enforcement matter.’ It’s a war.”

The deadline for the commission’s final report is July 26, the first day of the Democratic National Convention in Boston.