Analysis
Consensus on 9/11 has its price: Report dodges issue of Iraq war

By Dana Milbank and Walter Pincus
The Washington Post

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This was no oversight. Commissioners quickly concluded in their deliberations that any judgment on the wisdom of the Iraq war would scuttle their hope for unanimity.

"Iraq was a third rail," said Democratic commission member Richard Ben-Veniste. The war couldn't be discussed "without dissolving into divisions" — so the commission dropped the question, reasoning that it was not part of its mandate.

But that left a gaping hole in the commission's report. By the report's own logic, the United States must do a better job of defining the enemy. The "enemy is not just 'terrorism,' some generic evil," the commissioners wrote. "This vagueness blurs the strategy." The report complains about "an amorphous picture of the enemy" and says Americans are "given the picture of an omnipotent, unslayable hydra of destruction. This image lowers expectations for government effectiveness."

Yet, on the biggest real-world question of defining the terrorist enemy, the commissioners punted. On the practical question of whether fighting in Iraq is making Americans safer, the commissioners hew to the banal: "America's policy choices have consequences," they write. "Right or wrong, it is simply a fact that American policy regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and American actions in Iraq are dominant staples of popular commentary across the Arab and Muslim world. That does not mean U.S. choices have been wrong."

While the Iraq war was relegated to being the proverbial elephant in the room, references to Iraq are made throughout the report, about its ties to al-Qaida, about the religious philosophy of its leadership, about the Bush administration's powerful and long-standing interest in toppling Saddam Hussein, and about the inflamed passions in the Arab and Muslim world about the invasion. The references leave readers to draw their own conclusions — which, of course, many did, based on their original views.

Supporters of the Iraq war said the commission's report provided more evidence that Iraq was tied to al-Qaida — one of President Bush's major justifications for the war. The neoconservative organization Project for the New American Century wrote that the final report "significantly modified" an earlier finding by the commission staff of no "collaborative relationship" between Iraq and al-Qaida. The group said the commission found "the connection between Iraq and al-Qaida to be more extensive than many critics of the administration have been willing to admit."

Among those findings: Osama bin Laden may have met with a senior Iraqi intelligence officer in 1994 or 1995 and asked for space for training camps and help procuring weapons; al-Qaida members reportedly met with Iraqi intelligence in 1998, and Iraqis met with the Taliban and bin Laden in Afghanistan; Iraq and al-Qaida officials also may have met in 1999, and Iraqi officials reportedly offered bin Laden safe haven in Iraq.

But the commission also notes that bin Laden reportedly declined Iraq's offer in 1999, and that Iraq declined bin Laden's request in the mid-1990s. The commission concluded: "The reports describe friendly contacts and indicate some common themes in both sides' hatred of the United States. But to date we have seen no evidence that these or the earlier contacts ever developed into a collaborative operational relationship."

The report appears to give some support to arguments by opponents of the war that invading Iraq was a diversion. These critics include former White House counterterrorism director Richard Clarke, whose book said Bush "launched an unnecessary and costly war in Iraq that strengthened the fundamentalist, radical Islamic terrorist movement worldwide."

The 9/11 commission sounded a similar theme when it criticized the viewing of terrorism as a "generic evil," adding: "The catastrophic threat at this moment in history is more specific. It is the threat posed by Islamist terrorism." It described the enemy both as al-Qaida and as "a radical ideological movement in the Islamic world, inspired in part by al-Qaida." While al-Qaida itself is weakened, "the second enemy is gathering."
 
Those statements make no explicit mention of Iraq. But at many places in the report, the commission describes Saddam as having been a secular dictator.

At times, the commission report appears to suggest, by omission, that the Iraq war has not helped the fight against terrorism.

"Because of offensive actions against al-Qaida since 9/11, and defensive actions to improve homeland security, we believe we are safer today," the report concludes, silent on Iraq. But commissioners said that was merely a reflection of their "mandate," which did not include the Iraq war.

"The war in Iraq may have helped and may have hurt the war on terror," Republican commissioner Fred Fielding said on CNN.

While steadfast in avoiding a position on the Iraq war, the commissioners were at least unanimous in their view that the U.S. has no option but to continue its effort to transform the country. If "Iraq becomes a failed state, it will go to the top of the list of places that are breeding grounds for attacks against Americans at home," they concluded.

In related news:

President Bush plans to begin making decisions about restructuring the nation's intelligence machinery within days and may enact some changes by executive order or regulatory action without waiting for Congress, White House officials said yesterday.

Aides suggested for the first time that despite the opposition of some in the administration, Bush is headed toward backing some variation of the Sept. 11 commission's call for a national intelligence director who would report directly to the president. The commission recommended a sweeping overhaul of intelligence agencies.