What was initially healthy skepticism about John Ashcroft’s political motivations has turned into widespread disbelief over the timing and substance of the latest public warnings about an imminent al Queda threat. And oddly enough, the critics aren’t limited to Dems and other Ashcroft critics.
The attorney general told the public Wednesday that a serious terrorist threat is just around the corner.
“Credible intelligence from multiple sources indicates that al Qaeda plans to attempt an attack on the United States in the next few months,” Ashcroft said. “This disturbing intelligence indicates al Qaeda’s specific intention to hit the United States hard.”
The problems with this warning have multiplied quickly in a very short period of time.
For example, Ashcroft appears to have circumvented the process that the Bush administration has created for such warnings, as well as a law passed two years ago to establish a system for the dissemination of terrorist threat alerts.
Some allies of the Department of Homeland Security within the Bush administration and members of Congress criticized Attorney General John D. Ashcroft yesterday for issuing terrorist threat warnings at a news conference on Wednesday, contending he failed to coordinate the information with the White House and with Homeland Security, which has the job of releasing threat warnings.
[…]
Under the Homeland Security Act of 2002 and Bush administration rules, only the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) can publicly issue threat warnings, and they must be approved in a complex interagency process involving the White House. Administration officials sympathetic to Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said he was not informed Ashcroft was going to characterize the threat in that way — an assertion that Justice officials deny.
Great. Bush’s Defense Department is already feuding with Bush’s State Department; now Bush’s Justice Department can’t play nicely with Bush’s Department of Homeland Security. All the while, the attorney general is playing by his own rules, which he appears to be making up as he goes along.
Can’t anyone here play this game?
Even Republican lawmakers, such as House Select Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Chris Cox (R-Calif.), are expressing their displeasure with Ashcroft.
“Dissemination by our government of sensitive terrorism warnings must be closely coordinated across our intelligence and law enforcement communities,” Cox said. “In the Homeland Security Act, DHS was assigned the central coordinating role in this process. The absence of Secretary Ridge from yesterday’s news conference held by the attorney general and the FBI director, and the conflicting public messages their separate public appearances delivered to the nation, suggests that the broad and close interagency consultation we expect, and which the law requires, did not take place in this case.”
The Wall Street Journal noted that DHS is clearly not on board with Ashcroft’s new warnings, which they didn’t even know were being shared with the public.
Homeland Security, charged by law with analyzing intelligence to assess threats, is the lead designated agency for issuing threat advisories. But officials there say they had little advance notice before Attorney General John Ashcroft issued his broad warning on Wednesday. Moreover, Homeland Security officials believed the information being used by Justice, much of which had been known for some time, was not new or specific enough to merit an announcement or other action.
Then there was this interesting response.
“We believe that the public, like all of us, needs (a) reminder,” Ashcroft said when asked about the timing of the announcement.
A reminder? This really doesn’t make any sense. If Ashcroft was speaking to reporters and said, “I’m concerned that some Americans have grown complacent, but it’s important that we realize that the terrorist threat remains very real,” that would be a reminder. Instead, Ashcroft held a dire press conference to articulate a specific threat from a specific enemy, insisting that an attack was likely to come sometime over the next “few months.” This wasn’t a reminder; it was a warning.
And finally. there were tidbits like this one, from CNN White House correspondent Dana Bash.
“[A]s far as their motives go, the Bush team certainly is well aware of the fact that people are questioning their motives and that there’s a perception that perhaps that there was a political motive out there.
As a matter of fact, they understand it is, people think, perhaps to change the subject on Iraq. I talked to an official about Iraq earlier, called the official and started asking questions about that. And sarcastically the official said, ‘Why are you calling me about this? Don’t you know that we changed the subject?'”
Given the circumstances, that’s really not funny.