That was the Week that Was

It’s been a lousy week. Americans in Iraq were murdered and mutilated. Palestinians staged rallies in support of the murderers and burned American flags. A minor Iraqi cleric who probably couldn’t spell “sedition” committed it and more people died. Iraqis held Japanese civilians hostage with the threat to burn them alive unless their government agreed to quit the coalition. In some quarters, America was blamed for being “insensitive” to the “needs” of the Shi’ites. No one could quite get up the gall to blame the Japanese.

It’s been a lousy week. Americans in Iraq were murdered and mutilated. Palestinians staged rallies in support of the murderers and burned American flags. A minor Iraqi cleric who probably couldn’t spell “sedition” committed it and more people died. Iraqis held Japanese civilians hostage with the threat to burn them alive unless their government agreed to quit the coalition. In some quarters, America was blamed for being “insensitive” to the “needs” of the Shi’ites. No one could quite get up the gall to blame the Japanese. And while the Marines once again valiantly took the fight to the enemy, a senior American Senator postured and called it “Vietnam” in a voice dripping with disgust – apparently forgetting which president sent the troops there.

Nothing could possibly be more demoralizing to our troops on a hot battlefield than to pronounce the war they are fighting immoral and unwinnable. Except maybe the spectacle of official Washington working overtime to make it unwinnable.

While the real life dangers to American personnel in Iraq should have made our government focus on the war, the soldiers and the strategy, a political drama filled the airways. Washington was consumed with the appearance of the NSC advisor breaking precedent to appear under oath before politicos trying to force pre-9-11 events through a post-9-11 prism to bend them for partisan gain.

Yes, clearly there were intelligence failures prior to 9-11, more in the analysis than in the collection, and we would agree that these failures began three administrations ago and continue today. Yes, there are people who should resign or be fired – starting with the leadership of the agencies that failed to connect connectible dots. On the other hand, try to imagine the uproar if Attorney General Ashcroft had said prior to 9-11, “Let’s have the FBI and CIA collaborate on profiling information they’ve collected on Arabs in the United States, and share the information with the FAA – just in case.” We can hardly collect and disseminate domestic intelligence NOW!

Dr. Rice told the commission, “The terrorists were at war with us, but we were not yet at war with them. For more than 20 years, the terrorist threat gathered, and America’s response across several administrations of both parties was insufficient. Historically, democratic societies have been slow to react to gathering threat… for all the language of war spoken before September 11th, this country simply was not on war footing.”

Now it is. The 9-11 families want answers and closure, but the families of the soldiers who have fought and continue to fight the war need and deserve to know that their sons and daughters have the full attention of the government – Republicans and Democrats. It is not possible to satisfy all of the wants and needs, and the priority order should be fighting forces first.

This was a bad week for the forces of freedom in the war against terrorists and the swamps that breed them. Washington can give them a better week next week by turning the cameras off of the 9-11 Commission and working on the threats they face.