Republicans are fond of proclaiming that they are the party of strong defense and national security. This is a claim that has been repeated with such frequency over the past few decades that it has become part of the conventional American political narrative: Republicans are strong on foreign policy and defense, while Democrats are stronger domestically on social and economic issues. The 2004 election, while popularly reported as having been swung by "moral" issues such as gay marriage, was actually largely decided by Americans who determined that Republicans, and President Bush in particular, would be stronger leaders in the war on terrorism.
Unfortunately, the past three years - especially because of striking revelations over the past few weeks - suggest that Republicans should be kept as far away from America's foreign policy apparatus as possible. First, and most obviously, the current administration and Republican Congress have committed American military and economic resources to a peripheral conflict which does not address American security concerns. This is not a radical left-wing view. According to a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll, 60 percent of Americans think that the Iraq War was not worth fighting, while 52 percent think the war has not made the United States more secure.
Even worse, administration officials lied about and manipulated intelligence to support the case for war. Regardless of Republican efforts to persuade the public that this claim is the result of conniving collaboration between Harry Reid and Michael Moore, the facts are clear. Administration officials, particularly those working under Dick Cheney and in the office of former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Doug Feith, overstated both estimates of Iraq's capability to produce weapons of mass destruction and Saddam Hussein's ties to al-Qaeda terrorist groups. Evidence of this ranges from Cheney's insistence to include clearly questionable reports of Iraqi attempts to buy African uranium to administration officials' apparently heroic ability to studiously ignore the numerous indications that there was not, never had been, and probably never would be a connection between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. The primary source for many of the administration's claims of an Iraq-al Qaeda connection was identified as a likely liar by a Defense Intelligence Agency report published in February 2002. Apparently no one in the White House listens to the DIA, or the CIA - or anyone else for that matter - unless it suits their purposes.
This is also not, as the Right would like the reader to believe, a radical left-wing conspiracy theory. According to the same poll cited above, 55 percent of Americans believe the Bush administration intentionally misled the public in stating the case for war. In case any campus Republicans are hoping to accuse the Daily of mistakenly relying on a single source, recent CBS News and CNN/USA Today/Zogby polls show strikingly similar results.
Events of the past few weeks have provided further evidence that today's Republican Party is not to be trusted with American security. The indictment of I. Lewis Libby bears two important lessons for the public. It reveals a clear, concerted effort by the administration to discredit a dissident voice by making the name of a national security asset public. Whether this was just a careless act or the intent was malicious is irrelevant to all except the special prosecutor and the grand jury. It shows at the very least incompetence and a cavalier attitude at the highest levels of government. The second point is that at least one administration official, if guilty, knowingly obstructed the effort to determine the source of the leak. The importance of an investigation to identify failure within the defense and intelligence structure cannot be overstated, and to sabotage such an effort shows a disregard for national security and the interests of the American people.
As Trent Lott revealed Monday, the leak of the existence of secret CIA prisons in foreign locations around the world almost certainly came from a member of the Republican senatorial caucus. As Mr. Lott said, "We can't keep our mouths shut." The Daily and most of America agrees. Republicans should stay out of foreign policy and perhaps devote more time to writing the dirty novels that they seem to so thoroughly enjoy.
