Bush failed War on Terror strategies questioned as term ends

therawstory
AFP
Bush approach to war on terror under pressure as term ends

The Bush administration has come under renewed pressure over its anything-goes approach to the “war on terror” that could leave tough problems behind for a new president, analysts say.

A federal judge’s order this week that 17 Chinese Muslim Uighurs be released from Guantanamo into the United States renewed questions about White House policy of holding people without charges in the US prison in Cuba for years after their capture.

Meanwhile, allegations by two linguists that the National Security Agency listened in on conversations of Americans overseas, including pillow talk, aroused protests over infringements on civil liberties.

“If it proves to be true, I think you’ll see further demand for oversight and further demand for control,” said James Lewis, a national security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Only two years ago, the Bush administration could count on public fear of terrorism and a Republican-controlled Congress to support an array of anti-terrorism tactics and programs that tested or exceeded the limits of US law.

Coercive interrogations, indefinite detentions, secret overseas prisons, and warrantless surveillance of phone calls and emails were among the tools used in its no-holds-barred response to the September 11 attacks on the United States.

But with the administration near the end of its term, said Lewis, “things are starting to come a little unglued.

“The approach this administration took is breaking down. Some of it is, as it loses its political steam and its credibility, people are willing to speak out.”

Greater oversight and political resistance in Congress has forced some compromise but not radical changes in approach, however.

The administration succeeded in amending the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act last year to permit the government to monitor communications that begin or end overseas.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey this month signed new guidelines on Federal Bureau of Investigation operations that critics say will give it broad new powers to conduct surveillance and use other intrusive investigative techniques on Americans.

And the administration won a stay of the court order releasing the Uighurs, and have plodded on with trials by military commission of some detainees at Guantanamo Bay despite repeated legal setbacks.

“The sense that what they are doing is right and necessary is very strong still in the Bush administration,” said Lewis.

Any major adjustment in the US approach to the “global war on terror” awaits a new administration, which must still weigh the risk of catastrophic attack against the need to preserve civil liberties.

“Every democratic nation that has had to grapple with a terrorist threat has been obliged to alter some of the rules — the rules of intelligence collection, police powers and so on,” said Brian Jenkins, a terrorism expert at the RAND Corporation.

“And that’s okay so long as you modify the rules and work within the rules. Where things begin to go wrong is where people assert that the rules don’t matter,” he said.

Jenkins said the struggle against terrorism will be a long one, and the new administration should shore up international support by acting in ways that reflect US values.

“I think as a first step we should close down Guantanamo. It is a symbol of things that are wrong. We need to promptly identify and release those who are wrongly held, we need to develop a patently fair (legal) procedure.”

But he said there “are just some people we’re not going to let go.”

Calls for closing the prison have gone nowhere despite a broad consensus that Guantanamo has been a costly mistake because of fears that dangerous extremists might go free if tried in US courts.

“The challenge is how are they going to deal with it after all these years in that realm where people are in this kind of never-neverland,” said Colette Rausch, a former prosecutor who works on “rule of law” programs at the US Institute for Peace.

Analysts say no matter who wins the presidential election in November, the struggle against terrorism will continue to be a mix of military force, intelligence operations and police work.

But, said Rausch, “we have to be savvier in understanding what are the roots of all the different types of violence going on, and then tailor our response appropriately.

“Fighting it all with a blanket, heavy-handed re

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