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Thursday, Nov 26, 2009
The former vice president takes the gloves off, saying Bush has squandered the world's goodwill, is failing to focus on the war on terrorism and could be creating a global "reign of fear."
Sep 24, 2002 | With Congress already debating a resolution that would allow a U.S. invasion of Iraq, former Vice President Al Gore warned Monday that unilateral military action to topple Saddam Hussein would divert the nation from the more crucial war on terrorism, possibly increase the threat from Iraq, anger the rest of the world and saddle the staggering American economy with a huge war bill.
Gore's speech, delivered to a cheering crowd in San Francisco, was the most comprehensive and the most withering attack on Bush policies to date by a potential Democratic presidential contender. While acknowledging Iraq as a "serious threat" and describing Saddam as "evil," Gore charged that Bush's inept handling of the war against Afghanistan and his near-unilateral campaign against Saddam were undermining U.S. foreign policy goals and the nation's credibility abroad.
He blasted Bush for failing to stabilize Afghanistan, nine months after routing the Taliban from power. He accused Bush and the Republicans of cynically using Iraq as a political issue in the weeks leading up to November's midterm elections. He charged that Bush's stated policy of unilateral action is turning even allies against the United States. And he warned that the new doctrine announced last week by the administration, asserting the right of the United States to take unilateral, preemptive action against any country perceived as a threat, would set a precedent encouraging other countries to take preemptive action, creating a global "reign of fear."
"I am deeply concerned that the course of action we are presently following with respect to Iraq has the potential to seriously damage our ability to win the war against terrorism and to weaken our ability to lead the world in this new century," Gore said.
"In the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11, a year ago, we had an enormous reservoir of good will and sympathy and shared resolve all over the world," he added later in the speech. "That has been squandered in a year's time and been replaced with great anxiety all around the world, not primarily about what the terrorist network is going to do, but about what we are going to do."
Most of the pointed criticism of Bush's Iraq policy in recent weeks has come from Republicans and others with close ties to the military establishment -- men like retired Gen. Brent Scowcroft, who served as national security advisor to Bush's father during the Gulf War. Democrats have agonized over their answer to Bush's war plans, with few willing to criticize his policies for fear of a voter backlash. Most, in fact, predict that Bush will win broad bipartisan support for his Iraq resolution, probably in a vote just weeks before the election.
Among a handful of potential presidential contenders, several have raised muted questions about the fine points of his approach, but most have backed Bush's apparent goal of winning regime change with a preemptive strike. Only Sen. John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat and Vietnam veteran, has sharply criticized Bush policy.
Why Gore decided to speak so bluntly on such a sensitive issue is unclear. One possibility is that as a presidential candidate he wanted to make a bold move to break away from the Democratic pack. Another is that he had decided not to run in 2004, and so felt free to speak his mind. He said Monday that he had not yet decided whether to run.
Gore's statements seemed certain to energize the debate about the war among Democrats, possibly slowing Bush's and the GOP's political momentum as the November elections approached. Coming from a senior politician, they could test the waters and give cover to Democrats fearful of speaking out against the war.
Gore, also a Vietnam vet (as a journalist), in recent months had been largely silent on Iraq. In February, just five months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, he appeared before the Council on Foreign Relations in New York and offered mostly praise for Bush, who had defeated him in the 2000 presidential contest after a controversial ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court. The nation was moving toward a "final reckoning" with Iraq, Gore said in the February speech.
But even though Iraq was then a back-burner issue, Gore also warned that the multilateral coalition Bush had assembled for the war on terrorism could fall apart if Bush did not show "a more evident respect ... for the views and interests of its members."
In his 46-minute speech Monday before the Commonwealth Club of California, Gore pressed that argument with vigor, systematically criticizing Bush's policies on terrorism and Iraq and at times suggesting that the Bush presidency compares poorly with that of his father during the Gulf War.
Gore's fundamental premise was simple: The nation's top priority should be the war on terrorism, and it should be prosecuted carefully but without compromise. Those who planned the Sept. 11 attacks have thus far "gotten away with it," he said, while Bush's attention seems to be drifting to "some other enemy whose location may be easier to identify."
"I do not believe that we should allow ourselves to be distracted from this urgent task simply because it is proving to be more difficult and lengthy than was predicted," he said to loud applause. "Great nations persevere and then prevail. They do not jump from one unfinished task to another."
