9/11 Panel May Hurt Bush Reelection Campaign [View All]

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

9/11 Panel's Findings Vault Bush Credibility To Campaign Forefront



Analysis
9/11 Panel's Findings Vault Bush Credibility To Campaign Forefront

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.

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