Was Karl Rove behind the latest terrorist alert?

Washington Intrigue

The fact that it was John Ashcroft rather than Tom Ridge who issued the latest terror alert underscores the rivalry between Justice and Homeland Security?-and highlights the administration's attempt to undermine John Kerry

WEB EXCLUSIVE By Eleanor Clift - Newsweek
May 28, 2004May 28

What was the subliminal message of John Ashcroft's stepped-up terror warning earlier this week? It's that if the terrorists want to disrupt the presidential election, that must mean they're for Democratic candidate John Kerry.

Think Madrid. The terrorist train bombings there in March were credited with ousting Spain's pro-Bush conservative government and propelling the Socialists to power. But Kerry has done a good job in recent days of countering the notion that if he is elected president, America will go soft on terrorism.

The Massachusetts senator showed real strength this week in a speech in Seattle where he laid out his vision for national security. He said America was less safe because of Bush's go-it-alone war, and that he would never send U.S. troops "to fight a war without a plan to win the peace." Kerry was steadfast on Iraq, refusing to heed critics on the left who want a date set for U.S. withdrawal, and warning terrorists against harboring any illusions they can divide the country on the eve of an election. "If we can build on America's confidence and not their fears, we can win this thing," says a Democratic strategist. "It's a trust issue?-it's the modern version of finger on the button." The latest CBS poll showed Kerry opening up an 8-point margin over Bush, rebutting critics who fret Kerry is overly cautious and should be surging because of Bush's world of woe.

The harshest criticism a group of Fox News analysts could muster is that Kerry sounded too much like President Bush. "That may be the point," says a Republican strategist. "No one can argue Kerry is weak. With all the grief he's taking, he's positioning himself wisely." Next thing you know, nervous Democrats will complain Kerry is peaking too soon. Remember Howard Dean, they'll warn.

The real story this week is why Attorney General John Ashcroft held the press conference on the new terror warnings and not Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge. An aide to a Republican senator on the Armed Services Committee says, "The divisions between Homeland Security and the Justice Department are as profound as between State and Defense." In a classic case of Washington intrigue, Ridge reportedly leaked word of the upcoming Ashcroft press conference in order to pre-empt it, then went on the morning shows to assure Americans they should go ahead with their summer plans while Ashcroft is saying the end is near.

The two men are rivals for who's in charge, and who gets to protect America. It would be funny if it weren't for the potentially serious consequences. California Rep. Christopher Cox, who chairs the Homeland Security Committee, said the "separate public appearances conveyed the impression that the broad and close interagency consultation we expect?-and which the law requires?-may not have taken place in this case."

You don't have to be ultra-cynical to suspect the timing of Ashcroft's dire pronouncements. Bush is in a jam over Iraq, and the exit strategy is changing the subject, or at least broadening it from Iraq to the wider world of terror, where Bush clings to a narrow lead over Kerry in voter confidence. It's fishy that police departments in the target cities of Los Angeles and New York weren't notified and learned along with the public about the newest vague threats from television. This was hardly breaking news. Six of the seven names Ashcroft revealed as likely terrorists have been known to the FBI for months, some for as long as two and a half years.

Why now for "America's Most Wanted" Ashcroft-style? For one thing, Republicans are getting jittery about their convention, which gets underway the last week of August in New York. A GOP strategist not aligned with the White House predicts Republicans will rue the day they chose New York. "It will look like 1968 in Chicago," he says. That's probably too apocalyptic. Antiwar groups are planning demonstrations that security officials in New York expect will attract upward of a 100,000 protestors, but the police presence will be huge, and surely they'll know better than to bash heads in front of television cameras like the Chicago cops did in '68. According to an official involved with the planning, 10,000 of New York's Finest will work each shift, more than five times the 1,800 cops assigned when the Democrats nominated Bill Clinton at Madison Square Garden in 1992.

The outpouring of antiwar sentiment is a bigger problem for the Republicans as they plan their convention than the likelihood of a terror attack. A former FBI official familiar with Al Qaeda's method of operation says he "can't imagine" them choosing to take on the convention. "They'll say: what about Newark, or shopping malls, or the trains in D.C. … I don't subscribe to their wanting to affect the election in Spain," he adds. "They're not that clever. They tried to do [the Madrid attack] around Christmas. One of their packages was discovered. They did it the next time they got their act together. They do things on their timetable, not ours."

That's hardly comforting, which is why Bush is running scared. "The whole point of fighting them over there is so we wouldn't have to fight them here," says the GOP strategist. "Are we really safer? Ashcroft seems to be saying no." Bush has staked his claim to re-election on the premise that he has made America safer. Kerry bided his time, but for the first time this week he made the case in a sober, convincing way that he could be trusted to succeed where Bush has failed.