Lifting the Shroud

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/23/opinion/23KRUG.html

From the day it took office, U.S. News & World Report
wrote a few months ago, the Bush administration
"dropped a shroud of secrecy" over the federal
government. After 9/11, the administration’s
secretiveness knew no limits - Americans, Ari Fleischer
ominously warned, "need to watch what they say, watch
what they do." Patriotic citizens were supposed to
accept the administration’s version of events, not ask
awkward questions.

But something remarkable has been happening lately:
more and more insiders are finding the courage to
reveal the truth on issues ranging from mercury
pollution - yes, Virginia, polluters do write the
regulations these days, and never mind the science - to
the war on terror.

It’s important, when you read the inevitable attempts
to impugn the character of the latest whistle-blower,
to realize just how risky it is to reveal awkward
truths about the Bush administration. When Gen. Eric
Shinseki told Congress that postwar Iraq would require
a large occupation force, that was the end of his
military career. When Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV
revealed that the 2003 State of the Union speech
contained information known to be false, someone in the
White House destroyed his wife’s career by revealing
that she was a C.I.A. operative. And we now know that
Richard Foster, the Medicare system’s chief actuary,
was threatened with dismissal if he revealed to
Congress the likely cost of the administration’s
prescription drug plan.

The latest insider to come forth, of course, is Richard
Clarke, George Bush’s former counterterrorism czar and
the author of the just-published "Against All Enemies."

On "60 Minutes" on Sunday, Mr. Clarke said the
previously unsayable: that Mr. Bush, the self-
proclaimed "war president," had "done a terrible job on
the war against terrorism." After a few hours of
shocked silence, the character assassination began. He
"may have had a grudge to bear since he probably wanted
a more prominent position," declared Dick Cheney, who
also says that Mr. Clarke was "out of the loop." (What
loop? Before 9/11, Mr. Clarke was the administration’s
top official on counterterrorism.) It’s "more about
politics and a book promotion than about policy," Scott
McClellan said.

Of course, Bush officials have to attack Mr. Clarke’s
character because there is plenty of independent
evidence confirming the thrust of his charges.

Did the Bush administration ignore terrorism warnings
before 9/11? Justice Department documents obtained by
the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank,
show that it did. Not only did John Ashcroft completely
drop terrorism as a priority - it wasn’t even mentioned
in his list of seven "strategic goals" - just one day
before 9/11 he proposed a reduction in counterterrorism
funds.

Did the administration neglect counterterrorism even
after 9/11? After 9/11 the F.B.I. requested $1.5
billion for counterterrorism operations, but the White
House slashed this by two-thirds. (Meanwhile, the Bush
campaign has been attacking John Kerry because he once
voted for a small cut in intelligence funds.)

Oh, and the next time terrorists launch an attack on
American soil, they will find their task made much
easier by the administration’s strange reluctance, even
after 9/11, to protect potential targets. In November
2001 a bipartisan delegation urged the president to
spend about $10 billion on top-security priorities like
ports and nuclear sites. But Mr. Bush flatly refused.

Finally, did some top officials really want to respond
to 9/11 not by going after Al Qaeda, but by attacking
Iraq? Of course they did. "From the very first moments
after Sept. 11," Kenneth Pollack told "Frontline,"
"there was a group of people, both inside and outside
the administration, who believed that the war on
terrorism . . . should target Iraq first." Mr. Clarke
simply adds more detail.

Still, the administration would like you to think that
Mr. Clarke had base motives in writing his book. But
given the hawks’ dominance of the best-seller lists
until last fall, it’s unlikely that he wrote it for the
money. Given the assumption by most political pundits,
until very recently, that Mr. Bush was guaranteed re-
election, it’s unlikely that he wrote it in the hopes
of getting a political job. And given the Bush
administration’s penchant for punishing its critics, he
must have known that he was taking a huge personal
risk.

So why did he write it? How about this: Maybe he just
wanted the public to know the truth.

E-mail: krugman@nytimes.com

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company