Mr. President, please talk more about Sept. 11
Byron York
Remember awhile back, nearly four years now — it may have been in September — something really bad happened?
We don’t like to talk about it now, but you may recall that it was in New York, and in Washington, and in a field in Pennsylvania.
A lot of people died. It changed the lives of millions of Americans, some in profound ways. And many people vowed to make sure it didn’t happen again.
But we don’t like to talk about it now. In fact, if the president even brings the Bad Thing up, some people become very agitated.
So it was no surprise that when George W. Bush gave a speech Tuesday night on the war in Iraq, and he mentioned the Bad Thing — he called it “Sept. 11” — there were lots of hurt feelings.
Like those of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). “The president’s frequent references to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 show the weakness of his arguments,” Pelosi said after the speech. “He is willing to exploit the sacred ground of 9-11, knowing that there is no connection between 9-11 and the war in Iraq.”
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) was also unhappy. “The president’s numerous references to Sept. 11 did not provide a way forward in Iraq,” he said.
And, of course, The New York Times was upset. “We had hoped [Bush] would resist the temptation to raise the bloody flag of 9/11 over and over again,” the paper editorialized, “to justify a war in a country that had nothing whatsoever to do with the terrorist attacks.”
But what’s so wrong with talking about Sept. 11? It was only a world-historic, before-and-after event that has fundamentally changed the way the United States deals with the rest of the planet.
If Bush administration officials have made a mistake on the national security front in the months since the election, it is that they have not talked about Sept. 11 enough.
As many critics pointed out, Bush mentioned September 11 five times in his speech Tuesday.
First, the president said that American troops “are fighting a global war on terror. The war reached our shores on September 11, 2001.”
Well, that’s true.
Second, the president said, “After Sept. 11, I made a commitment to the American people: This nation will not be attacked again. We will defend our freedom. We will take the fight to the enemy. Iraq is the latest battlefield in this war.”
That’s true, too.
Third, the president said, “The only way our enemies can succeed is if we forget the lessons of September the 11th, if we abandon the Iraqi people to men like Zarqawi and if we yield the future of the Middle East to men like bin Laden.”
That’s true, too.
Fourth, the president said that terrorists “are trying to shake our will in Iraq, just as they tried to shake our will on September 11, 2001. They will fail.”
That’s true, too.
And finally, the president said, “After Sept. 11, 2001, I told the American people that the road ahead would be difficult and that we would prevail. Well, it has been difficult and we are prevailing.”
That — hopefully — is true, too.
Still, the president’s critics became angry, accusing Bush of claiming that Iraq had a role in Sept. 11.
But wasn’t the plain meaning of Bush’s words that the same people who perpetrated Sept. 11 are today fighting the U.S. in Iraq?
That seems indisputable. Osama bin Laden has given his blessing to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi; Zarqawi has proclaimed his allegiance to bin Laden. And al Qaeda appears to view Iraq as its main battleground today.
So this is the situation: No, Iraq did not plan Sept. 11 — even though many officials, chief among them Richard Clarke, worried about a Saddam-bin Laden connection — but the United States is now fighting al Qaeda in Iraq.
Accept, if you choose, the Democratic premise that Iraq, when the president decided to invade, had nothing to do with the war on terrorism. Even if that was true then, it’s not true now. If we’re fighting al Qaeda — along with a host of foreign jihadists — it’s part of the war on terror.
But if some Democrats had their way, the United States would have to fight that war on terrorism without ever mentioning Sept. 11. Does that make sense to you?
Even though a much-publicized series of polls has shown that many Americans believe it was a mistake to go into Iraq, the surveys also suggest that the public knows the United States has to stay there now.
And they apparently weren’t offended by Bush’s five references to Sept. 11. After the speech, Gallup pollsters found that 74 percent of those surveyed had a very positive or somewhat positive reaction to it.
They remember the Bad Thing very well — even if some people don’t want to talk about it.
York is a White House correspondent for National Review. His column appears in The Hill each week.
E-mail: byork@thehill.com
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