Before any discussion of terrorism, we need to make a crucial distinction: Bush has distracted America from the war on terror by invading Iraq.
According to Bob Woodward's Plan of Attack, Bush made the decision to invade Iraq before Sept. 11, 2001. The world changed on Sept. 11; George Bush's foreign policy did not. This war, in which the United States has suffered 90 percent of the casualties (more than 1,000 American troops and counting) and 90 percent of the cost ($200 billion and counting), has hampered our ability to fight the real terrorists.
Al Qaeda, the most imminent national security threat, now operates in 60 countries, and we have yet to locate Osama bin Laden. At the end of major operations in Afghanistan, Bush withdrew crucial Special Forces from Tora Bora, where bin Laden was surrounded, and outsourced the hunt to Afghan warlords. Rather than staying in Afghanistan to capture bin Laden, Bush moved Special Forces units into Iraq, months before Congress authorized the use of force there.
John Kerry's top priority in the war on terror is destroying terrorist networks. He will expand the NATO presence in Kabul, stop the drug trade and accelerate the disarmament of regional warlords who continue to kill our troops. Kerry will also transform the military by adding 40,000 troops, including doubling the size of America's Special Forces, so that the military will no longer have to divert forces from the hunt for bin Laden.
Kerry also plans to fight a smarter war. Kerry will adopt all of the recommendations of the bipartisan 9/11 Commission, unlike Bush who opposes many of these recommendations. Kerry will not politicize intelligence. He will give the national intelligence director full responsibility for counter-terrorism, and he will grant him control over his agency's budget and personnel, a change that Bush opposes. Kerry also plans to double the CIA's overseas personnel and increase the domestic intelligence capacity of the FBI.
Bush seems reluctant to take even the most obvious measures to ensure our safety. On Sept. 28, The New York Times reported that more than 120,000 hours of potentially valuable intelligence tapes remain untranslated at the FBI. Al Qaeda-related tapes are supposed to be translated within 12 hours of being received, yet this deadline has not been met in approximately 36 percent of cases. This failure has had disastrous consequences. On Sept. 10, 2001, U.S. intelligence received an al Qaeda transmission indicating that Sept. 11, 2001 would be "h-hours," (a military term indicating the beginning of an operation), yet this transmission went untranslated for days. George Bush's refusal to give the FBI the resources it needs to meet this goal is part of the pre-Sept. 10 mentality that could again cost thousands of lives.
Bush has also failed to protect ports in major cities such as Los Angeles, New York and Boston. Currently, only about five percent of shipping containers received at our ports are inspected. Bush's budget provides nowhere near the amount of funding to effectively secure these cities. Bush's excuse for not securing America? "A huge tax gap" created by his own irresponsible tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. John Kerry has a plan to increase these inspections six- fold.
While George Bush and John Kerry may have different priorities on homeland security (a tax cut vs. safety), one thing they did agree on was the growing threat of nuclear proliferation. Some 600-plus tons of nuclear materials remain unsecured in the former Soviet Union. It will take 13 years at the president's pace to secure all of these, while Kerry has a plan to secure them in four.
The message of Bush's policies has been simply "build, buy or steal nuclear weapons or we will invade your country." North Korea and Iran have responded accordingly. Iran aggressively pursues nuclear weapons and North Korea now has nuclear weapons, but Bush's only response has been "aggressive diplomacy:" six-way talks. This is the pre-Sept. 10 mentality. John Kerry is willing to talk to North Korea directly to demand "verifiable and irreversible elimination of North Korea's nuclear weapons."
John Kerry also understands that even with the most meticulous planning, things may go wrong. That is why he will increase funding for first responders. Bush cut domestic preparedness grants to state and local governments by $800 million, and simultaneously cut grants for first responder training by nearly half. These are the people who were first on the scene on Sept. 11, 2001, and George Bush won't give them the funding they need to do their jobs.
George Bush's reckless tax cuts have mortgaged our security. While Halliburton gets billions of dollars in no-bid government contracts to rebuild Iraq and George Bush and Dick Cheney get tax cuts, the American people are suffering. Osama bin Laden is still on the run, valuable intelligence information remains untranslated, nuclear weapons remain unsecured and our ports and borders remain unguarded. Meanwhile, the deficit has reached nearly a half trillion dollars, and the cost of the Iraq war has reached $200 billion. George W. Bush has his priorities. Are they yours?