Keep Fear and Politics Out of Effort to Combat Terrorism

Republican officials, as well as unofficial Republicans like Joe Lieberman, are cravenly exploiting the recent terrorist takedown and the all-powerful fear factor to manipulate public opinion for political advantage. But their "reminders," as they refer to them, are not necessary. There is no question about the magnitude of the threat but that threat is most effectively minimized by smart, solid investigative work, not fear-mongering, "security theater," or projection of toughness. As a recent Star Tribune editorial pointed out, it was "good police work that foiled the terror threat." Conversely, Bush's rush to the ill-conceived and unjustified war in Iraq has, irony of all ironies, greatly increased the terrorist threat. According to a recent State Department report, the number of terrorist incidents worldwide increased nearly fourfold in 2005.

George Bush, John Kline and the other public officials responsible for miring America in this costly and counterproductive conflict can't say they weren't warned. A small but vocal group of intelligence experts warned before we ever went into Iraq that a spike in terrorist recruitment would result, including Brent Scowcroft, National Security Adviser under George H. W. Bush.

Weeks before the 9/11 attacks, I saw bureaucratic incompetence hinder an investigation which might have stopped the attacks from happening. So in February 2003, even though I still worked for the government, I spoke up in an effort to head off the even graver mistake of invading Iraq:

At this critical point in our country's history I have decided to try once again, on an issue of even more consequence for the internal security posture of our country. That posture has been weakened by the diversion of attention from al-Qaeda to our government's plan to invade Iraq, a step that will, in all likelihood, bring an exponential increase in the terrorist threat to the U.S., both at home and abroad.

That these predictions have proven accurate means nothing to the GOP leadership in Washington. They believe any admission of error indicates weakness, so they continue their destructive, misguided path regardless of consequences. This is what I meant when I talked about "squaring the error" in my announcement speech in July 2005. The post 9-11 round-up of innocents, indiscriminate and politicized orange alerts, failure to follow tried and true investigative formulas, alienating allies, launching an ill-conceived war, use of torture, illegal wiretapping and over-collection of private data that does nothing but clutter intelligence databases are among the series of errors propelled by a combination of fear, lack of judiciousness and reliance upon neo-con cronies instead of non-partisan experts.

As Edmund Burke, the great British statesman of the 18th century so wisely stated, "nothing so effectively robs the mind of its ability to act or to reason as fear." And fear is not only the force that's been used to get the public to go along with this squaring of the error, but it's what the terrorists want since provoking fear is their prime tool.

It's difficult to imagine a worse response to 9/11 than the invasion of Iraq, which at the time had no meaningful connection to Al Qaeda, and was serving as a buffer zone in the Mid-east. The invasion not only boosted Al Qaeda recruitment and gave them a training ground, but it diverted resources away from Homeland Security, federal, state and local law enforcement and first responders. Bush and his cronies have received "D's" and "F's" from the nonpartisan 9-11 Commission for failing to implement homeland security safeguards including important port, airport, chemical/nuclear plant and transit system security initiatives. The Bush approach to fighting terror is like playing a soccer game without providing water to your defenders and sending all of your strikers to a bar fight in the next state.

Stellar law enforcement and cooperation between allies --- all accomplished within statutory surveillance guidelines, it should be mentioned --- are the reasons the London terrorists were stopped. But thanks to the massive distraction in Iraq, the terrorists might succeed in penetrating our defense next time. It's time to push fear and politics aside and start playing a much smarter game. We need to get our troops out of Iraq and focus law enforcement and intelligence gathering in a much more surgical, precise way upon true Al Qaeda terrorist threats and better homeland security.

Coleen Rowley is a candidate for Congress in Minnesota's 2nd District.