Second of five parts: The shadowy war

America is at war — a couple of them, actually. There is the war in Iraq where about 135,000 U.S. troops are on the ground. And the war on terrorism, launched after the stunning 9/11 attacks that killed more than 3,000 people.

The latter is clearly justified; the former, it has become clear, was not. Nevertheless, to even the most astute followers of U.S. policy and world events, the wars seem to blur together.

As Congress continues the debate whether to renew sunsetting provisions of the USA Patriot Act, it must tease out the disparate issues and influences of our two wars. The act must be scaled back, not expanded as the Bush administration desires.

The propaganda of one war has been used to goose the propaganda of the other. It is as if America's distinct enemies — Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, far-flung shadowy terrorist cells and the organized Iraqi insurgency — coagulated into one great, big bogeyman.

In his speech last week, President Bush retold the horror story as if America were sitting around the campfire:

"Many terrorists who kill innocent men, women and children on the streets of Baghdad are followers of the same murderous ideology that took the lives of our citizens in New York, in Washington, and Pennsylvania," he said at Fort Bragg. "There is only one course of action against them: to defeat them abroad before they attack us at home."

Only 44 days after 9/11, Congress enacted the sweeping Patriot Act — with only limited debate. Many of the most troubling provisions of the act, such as sneak-and-peek searches that delay notification of the targeted suspects, had been on law enforcement's wish lists for years. Congress repeatedly rejected them.

The terrorist attacks changed everything. Congress was moved to do something — anything.

Some cooler heads prevailed. Those representatives and senators wanted to keep a toe on this law, which lavished law enforcement with new tools. Acknowledging the heat of the moment, they demanded some provisions be sunsetted. Sixteen provisions are set to expire Dec. 31.

The war on terror and Americans' valid fears about another attack on America were exploited by the Bush administration to justify the war in Iraq. And now, the disturbing dispatches from Iraq — of U.S. and Iraqi casualties, suicide bombs and ambushes — shadow the debate about the Patriot Act's sunsetting provisions.

Last month, the Senate Intelligence Committee approved a disturbing new power. If enacted, law-enforcement officials would have the authority to issue and execute administrative warrants that require no judicial review. There would be no check, no judge to ask hard questions whether the search were justified or if it were legal.

The committee's ranking Democrat, Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, supported the bill even as he expressed concerns that administrative warrants could be used in criminal inquiries, not only for intelligence-gathering.

The expansion is indefensible — and must not stand. Some changes were needed after 9/11. But several aspects of the Patriot Act need to be dropped or scaled back.

One proposal, by Republican Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho and Democratic Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois, hits the right stride. Conservatives and liberals, both concerned about government intrusion into private citizens' lives, have found something to agree on.

Among the proposed changes in their Security and Freedom Enhancement (SAFE) Act are:

• Eliminate roving "John Doe" wire taps where neither the suspect nor the phone is specified. It would permit wire taps of unnamed individuals, however.

• Permit sneak-and-peek searches but only when law enforcement satisfies one of the specific, compelling reasons to delay notice. It would require notification within seven days, rather than the indefinite delay now permitted.

• Require federal agents to demonstrate specific suspicion against a suspect before they can demand records from third parties, such as libraries, books stores and banks. It also gives those parties the right to challenge the warrant.

• Mandate reporting how often law enforcement uses its Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act tools to gather information.

The SAFE Act is measured and thoughtful in a way the original Patriot Act couldn't be, given the crush of emotion and impulse to do something quickly.

This debate over tools in the war on terrorism must not be colored by the challenges of our other war. Teasing out the rhetoric surrounding the Iraq war from the current Patriot debate might be as difficult as teasing out the emotion that colored the original, abbreviated debate. But it must be done.