Gored!

You've said were planning to take a more vocal role last fall but were derailed by Sept. 11.

Yeah, and unfortunately for the country we had this horrible attack on us. Obviously in the aftermath of that, I reevaluated the speeches I intended to make in September 2001.

I wanted to ask you about the speech you made in San Francisco about the administration's policy toward Iraq. Does the fact that the administration has now received approval from the Security Council change your critique of the administration's policy?

I commend the president for changing the policy, at least the stated policy, and investing heavily in the United Nations, getting a unanimous vote in the Security Council, even Syria's vote -- I think that's an impressive accomplishment. I don't know what that really means for our policy, because apparently the rest of the world reads the resolution differently from the way we do, and it's unclear whether Secretary [of State Colin] Powell's temporary victory in the internal combat will prevail next week and the week after. You just don't know with this administration. But still, I think that this is a positive change.

I still disagree with the policy, however, on other grounds. I think that building an international coalition is a good thing. In San Francisco, I said that if you're going after Jesse James you need to organize a posse first, and I noticed in the newspaper this morning the president said in his remarks that he feels good to have organized a posse. But I think there's another significant factor that is a big problem for the country. He has lost focus on the war against terror. His decision, for whatever reason, to roll out a new product line after Labor Day, in the words of his chief of staff, and focus on a brand-new war in the run-up to the election had significant consequences.

Just look at what's going on now. FBI sources are telling the newspapers that the agency has lost focus. The CIA officials are telling the newspapers that precious resources needed for the war against terrorism are being diverted to war against Iraq. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has said publicly that we're losing ground in Afghanistan. The director of central intelligence said al-Qaida's reconstituted itself and poses just as dire a threat to us right now as they did in the weeks immediately prior to Sept. 11. Osama bin Laden is back on the cover of Time magazine making regular threats to kill us.

And instead of directing the war against terror in a single-minded, focused way, the president has spent the last several months campaigning against Saddam Hussein, beating the drums of war, running ads against people like [Sen.] Max Cleland, [D-Ga.,] accusing him of being unpatriotic even though he lost three limbs on the battlefield. And two things have resulted from that: The Republicans have won both houses of Congress, and the nation has lost ground in the war against terrorism.

And you think this was a campaign ploy?

I don't know what it was. I can't look inside their hearts. I have my suspicions, but I don't know what the motivation was. When the president's chief of staff was asked, he said, Well, you don't roll out a new product line until after Labor Day. Look at that metaphor: What does that imply? It implies that the war against terrorism was the old product line and it didn't have the kind of zing that they needed during the election campaign.

And you think al-Qaida poses a more immediate threat to the United States than Saddam Hussein.

I do. And I think that it is extremely misleading for the president to convince the country that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden are virtually the same thing, to use his phrase. They're not. It's a little bit like the old story about the guy who lost his car keys, and he was looking for them on the street corner under the street lamp, and a friend came by, tried to help him, and said, "Where'd you last have them?" And he said, "When I got out of the car, over in that field across the street." And his friend said, "Well, why are you looking for 'em here?" and he said, "'Cause the light's better here."

Osama bin Laden turned out to be difficult to locate, and they know roughly where Saddam Hussein is.

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