Homeland Insecurity

Last week, Secretary of Homeland Security, former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge, said that the government has developed information that Al Qaeda plans to disrupt the US elections with some sort of attack or series of attacks in the runup to the elections November 2nd. As usual, he didn't have anything specific, and as has become usual in the past year, he didn't raise the color-coded threat level.
Is the government doing everything in its power to keep the American public informed as information is developed, or are they playing politics? I think the answer is yes to both questions.

One of the persistent criticisms of the government after 9/11 was that they didn't take what intelligence they had developed seriously, and they didn't properly inform the nation--both the public and state and local agencies--of what they knew about potential attacks. They developed the color-coded alert system and created the cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security to address those criticisms. And since 9/11 we have been inundated with warnings for things that, frankly haven't materialized.

That's not unusual in the intelligence business. Not everything pans out. It is much easier to see what intel info is right after the fact. 20/20 hindsight remains perfect. So we get a lot more information, but it all doesn't turn out to be right.

I suspect Al Qaeda has learned how to jerk our chain and send out false information. And they've been able to judge how effective their communications are and how quickly we respond, but putting out false indications to gauge our reactions.

I also suspect that the Bush Administration doesn't want to be criticized again for failing to properly warn Americans of a possible impending attack. So they tell us about anything that is possible, whether it is probable or not. In the military, we used to call that "covering your butt." The government is covering its collective butt with these warning, and that's about all.
And this butt-covering is also a political exercise. "We told 'em. We did everything we could to prevent or warn about the attack. So don't blame us. We can't stop everything." Or so the argument will be made, and there is a grain of truth in it, to be sure.

I can't help wondering also if it isn't part of the election strategy of the Administration to keep reminding us that it's a dangerous world since 9/11, and they are on the job. (I wonder what the polling numbers show after a terror-threat announcement? Does the President's approval rating go up?

Equally importantly, for a political standpoint, is the answer to this question. If there is a terrorist attack before the elections, does it favor Bush's re-election or his defeat? Part of that will be timing, I'm sure. An early attack might be more damaging to Bush's chances than a late attack if peoples' reactions are immediately to show support for the administration. If they have time enough to consider what went wrong, they might blame the administration.

On the other hand, it might work the other way around. Frankly, I don't know what such an attack will do. I don't even know if the Spanish model will hold here. In Spain, the people were pretty unsupportive of the war in the first place, and the attacks in Madrid seemed to push them over the edge. But Americans weren't that unsupportive initially, so I don't know that we will react the same way.

The more I think about this, the more confusing it gets.