WP: 9/11 Panel's Findings Vault Bush Credibility To Campaign Forefront [View All]

By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 20, 2004; Page A01

The White House's swift and sustained reaction last week to the preliminary findings of the Sept. 11, 2001, commission showed the potential threat the 10-member panel poses to President Bush's reelection prospects.

After the commission staff released its findings Wednesday that there was no "collaborative relationship" between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda -- challenging an assertion Bush and Vice President Cheney have made for the past two years -- Bush declared again that there was, in fact, a relationship.

Democratic and Republican strategists agree that many details of the controversy do not pose a grave threat to Bush's reelection chances.

The significance, rather, is whether Bush's Democratic challenger, Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), can use the commission's findings to split the Iraq war from the war on terrorism in the public's mind, and, more broadly, raise doubts about Bush's credibility and competence by building on the failure to find weapons of mass destruction and the miscalculations about the Iraqi resistance.

(snip)

Late last week, commission leaders invited Cheney to provide intelligence reports that would buttress the White House's insistence that there were close ties between Hussein and al Qaeda, a commission member said. Commission Chairman Thomas H. Kean and Vice Chairman Lee H. Hamilton told the New York Times they wanted to see any additional information in the administration's possession after Cheney said Thursday in a television interview that he "probably" knew things about Iraq's ties to terrorists that the commission did not.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54702-2004Jun19.html