MB Civic

By Joan Vennochi  |  June 29, 2006  |  The Boston Globe

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED, yet again.

President Bush switched the conversation from war and insurgency to the preferred topics of terrorism and treason.

A week ago, major news outlets were focusing on atrocious Iraq war casualties and a resolution offered by Senator John Kerry to set a timetable for withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. The Kerry resolution and an alternative, calling for withdrawal, but no timetable, were both defeated. They were also derided by Republicans as “cut and run” proposals from pessimistic Democrats.

As it turned out, the Pentagon had a cut-and-run plan of its own. According to a June 25 article in The New York Times, General George W. Casey Jr., the top American commander in Iraq, drafted a plan that projected sharp reductions in US troops in Iraq by the end of 2007, with the first cuts coming this September. During a classified briefing at the Pentagon, Casey outlined a strategy that could draw down American troops from 127,000 to between 50,000 and 75,000 by the end of December 2007.

The Casey strategy sounds suspiciously similar to the scenario Vice President Dick Cheney denounced on CNN as “the worst possible thing we could do . . . packing it in, going home, persuading and convincing and validating the theory that the Americans don’t have the stomach for this fight.” Of course, at the time, the vice president was talking about the Democrats’ call for withdrawal — not the Pentagon’s plan for withdrawal.

Confronted with headlines about Casey’s plan, Bush downplayed it, saying troop presence would be “based upon conditions on the ground.”

And then, the president deftly changed the subject to another New York Times story, this one disclosing a secret program to investigate and track terrorists through an international database that includes Americans’ banking transactions. Bush condemned the report as “disgraceful,” administration officials piled on, and the political right joyously joined the chorus. Senator Jim Bunning, Republican of Kentucky, accused the Times of “treason.” The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and the Los Angeles Times also reported on the financial tracking program, but most of the vitriol is aimed at The New York Times, whose parent company owns The Boston Globe.

This frenzy, like all frenzies, distorts truth and undercuts logic.

As reported by the Globe’s Bryan Bender, information about the financial tracking program has been in the public domain since the terrorist attacks of Sept.. 11, 2001. It is referenced in government documents, congressional testimony, guidelines for bank examiners — and in an executive order signed in September 2001 by Bush. US authorities openly sought new tools to track terrorist financing, including access to transactions that travel through the Society for Worldwide Interbank Communication, or SWIFT, the program detailed by the Times.

“There have been public references to SWIFT before,” Roger Cressey, a senior White House counterterrorism official until 2003, told the Globe. “The White House is overreaching,” added Cressey, when the administration suggests the Times committed “a crime against the war on terror. It has been in the public domain before.”

Overreaching allowed the conservative news and talk show radio circuit to churn once again over what they label the left-leaning media. These patriots of the political right are constantly reminding us that US troops in Iraq are defending our liberty. Yet, they demonstrate amazing disdain for one critical piece of liberty those troops are defending — freedom of the press.

Overreaching also accomplished what it was supposed to accomplish. It turned attention away from Iraq and from Casey, his troop reduction plan and its conceptual parallel to the Democrats’ proposal.

Flag-burning, immigration, gay marriage, welfare-to-work. The GOP is working ferociously to divert the public’s attention from the casualties of war.

Meanwhile, sneaking the Casey plan out via the enemy — also known as The New York Times — gives political cover on Iraq to Republicans facing reelection battles. According to a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll, more Americans oppose withdrawal than support it, but the margin is dwindling. The survey found that 47 percent of the country favors setting a deadline for troops to exit from Iraq. That is up 8 percentage points since December. Fifty-one percent oppose a firm timetable for withdrawal, down from 60 percent seven months ago.

The Bush White House can’t control the outcome in Iraq, but it can control the message in America. On the home front, it knows how to win.