Despite their purported goal of not being a partisan commission, the 9/11 Commission’s report is being used for partisan sniping.  The Democrats, in their scorched-earth campaign to get President Bush booted out of office, are latching onto two specific paragraphs in the Commission’s report that they insist damns the president.  The first notes, “Because of offensive actions against al Qaeda since 9/11, and defensive actions to improve homeland security, we believe we are safer today.  But we are not safe.  We therefore make the following recommendations that we believe can make America safer and more secure” [my emphasis].  The Democrats are emphasizing the “we are not safe” statement by the 9/11 Commission, omitting the fact that the Commission believes we are safer as a result of the reactive measures instituted by the administration in the wake of September 11, 2001.  The Democrats would prefer to forget that President Bush has never claimed that we are safe.  As National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice frequently observes, the terrorists can be lucky just once while the government has to be right a hundred percent of the time.  Now, however, the Democrats have a publicly respected corroborator to their empty claims.  They’ve also latched onto another phrase, coming shortly after the first.  “The enemy is not just ‘terrorism.’”  In their scoffing, their political correctness, and their attempts to minimize the war on terror, they conveniently ignore the sentence after specifying Islamic terrorism as the primary enemy.

After months of investigation and partisan pandering by its members, the 9/11 Commission has finally delivered their report, which includes proposed changes to our government that will help prevent another cataclysmic terrorist event from occurring on our shores.  Sadly, their solution to the cripplingly large bureaucracy that failed to prevent September 11 is more bureaucracy.  Equally sad, they believe that in order to remain non-partisan, they must also overlook the many ways in which President Bush’s administration has already accomplished many of the recommendations that they set forth.

The 9/11 Commission first recommends the government “Attack Terrorists and Their Organizations.”  One must wonder if they’ve been sequestered for the past two years.  President Bush has gone after bin Laden in Afghanistan and is currently working with the Pakistan government to try and find the terrorist mastermind in the inaccessible mountains along the country’s border with Afghanistan.  Secretary of State Colin Powell has been sent out to Pakistan to try and bolster a deal with Pakistan’s president to find bin Laden and provide the final closure that many of the families need.

Meanwhile, in Iraq we deposed a terrorist supporter – part of the “organization” that the 9/11 Commission suggests we attack.  To be sure, there are many other organizations out there worthy of being destroyed (North Korea and Iran come to mind), but we do not have the means nor the public support to take on all this at once.  Complicating matters, our country’s goal to seek out and destroy terrorist organizations have required us to maintain alliances with cowardly countries like Spain and the Philippines, countries that prefer to give into their fears and the demands of terrorists rather than stand strong against them.  This has made our battle more difficult, but it has not affected President Bush’s resolve in attacking terrorist organizations.

The 9/11 Commission also insists that our government “Prevent the Continued Growth of Islamist Terrorism” by, among other things, communicating and defending “American ideals in the Islamic world through much stronger public diplomacy to reach more people” and by devoting “a maximum effort to the parallel task of countering the proliferation of” WMDs.  Our war in Iraq has accomplished both of these things.  The coalition’s handover of governing authority to the Iraqis on schedule and without complaint demonstrates our support of their democracy and as powerful a diplomatic effort as is manageable.  The deposing of a tyrant and the installation of democracy are strong statements with more meaning than empty words spoken in a United Nations chamber.  After all, decades of the UN’s attempts at peacemaking did not prevent the genocide in Rwanda, the further enslavement of Sudanese, nor the starvation of the people of Zimbabwe.  In Iraq, millions have freedom, schools, and a growing economy.  To be sure, there has been a short-term spike in terrorism in that country, but that only proves the impact it has on the terrorist’s plans.  As the freedom flourishes, as it grows, the terrorism will decrease and the United States will have made a powerful statement to the people of the world: freedom can be yours.  No better deterrent is available to terrorism than that.

The removal of Saddam Hussein also helped prevent the spread of WMDs into the hands of terrorists.  Whether or not Saddam had them is less relevant than the fact that he was actively seeking them.  The uranium from Niger has been confirmed in various intelligence investigations.  Saddam’s ties to terrorist organizations has similarly been proven.  The Associated Press even has unconfirmed reports that nuclear weapons were found in a specially concealed bunker not far from Tikrit.  For all of the complaining of how the Bush administration failed to connect the dots and prevent September 11, the Democrats fail to connect these simple dots and see the threat that was once posed to this country.  A threat that has been lessened thanks to President Bush’s resolve.

The final suggestion the 9/11 Commission made was to “Protect against and Prepare for Terrorist Attacks.”  While not as much as the liberal groups want, President Bush has done quite a bit to protect and prepare for future terrorist attacks.  In fact, the Commission’s recommendation for funding allocation follows models already established by the Bush administration: “Base federal funding for emergency preparedness solely on risks and vulnerabilities, putting New York City and Washington, D.C., at the top of the current list.  Such assistance should not remain a program for general revenue sharing or pork-barrel spending.”  Roughly translated, the millions that Senator Patrick Leahy (D.) has sent home to Vermont for homeland security protections should be returned because Vermont is very low on the list of terrorist targets.  The Bush administration supports the prioritizing of funding, but too many representatives and senators want their funding to go back to their constituencies for their own reelection opportunities and the pork barrel, self-preservation tendencies of Washington continues.

There is still plenty to be done, of course.  The 9/11 Commission report includes many common sense measures that President Bush could, and should, easily enact upon his return to the public spotlight on the other side of the Democratic National Convention.  His administration deserves credit for reacting and being proactive in keeping our country safe and preventing additional attacks.  Partisans may label his efforts as partisan, but that can’t be helped if he wants to continue to protect this country.  There is plenty recommended by the report that should be questioned and thought about before simply enacting, but many of the administration’s current policies are similar to the Commission’s recommendations.  It isn’t partisan to point that out.

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