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War Notes Christopher RuddyMeeting Mrs. Bush I just got back this weekend from the New Orleans Conference, the nation's largest financial conference. I was honored to have been selected as one of the main speakers. In my speech I focused on Alan Greenspan's politicization of the Federal Reserve. Later, I was a participant in a "Hardball" panel moderated by Chris Matthews. Chris was his witty, irreverent and controversial self. He is one of the few major media figures I know questioning calls for a U.S. attack on Iraq. Whether you agree with him or not, we need more media figures like Chris Matthews. A Democrat, Matthews was equally tough on Bill Clinton when the media fan club gave him a virtual free ride. Perhaps the high point of the conference was Barbara Bush. I had the pleasure of meeting her before her speech. I was reminded of what a friend at the Hoover Institution who has advised W. told me: "Remember, W. takes after his mother and, fortunately, not his father." Mrs. Bush has many good qualities, and, I believe, distinguished herself as first lady and set the standard by which we have judged first ladies. 'Bush's Recession' First, the Democrats were complaining that Republicans were playing politics in not immediately agreeing to their efforts to federalize airport security so it could run as well as the post office. Then there were mutterings that the war in Afghanistan wasn't moving along fast enough. Now, with no major terrorist activity and the war against al-Qaeda in the endgame, the Democrats have no remorse in turning their sights directly on President Bush. Last week, the DNC announced it is launching a nationwide TV campaign calling the economic slowdown the "Bush Recession." This proves that Democrats treat politics as blood sport and why, since 1932, they have remained, with a few interruptions here and there, as the majority party. Republicans almost always act like gentlemen – and frequently lose. Earlier this year I implored the Republican talking heads and administration officials to always refer to the economic slowdown as the "Clinton hangover" and to clarify that the administration was trying to stave off a "Clinton recession." Any reasonable person would agree that the current recession is the result of Clinton-Greenspan economic policies that Bush simply inherited. But once again, the Democrats have defined the terms of the debate and are busy rewriting history. Still, the Republicans are to blame. When will they ever listen to David Horowitz? Mike Wallace of Arabia Two weeks ago, "60 Minutes" "reporter" Mike Wallace detailed his recent trip to Kuwait, in which he discovered that the Kuwaitis are not so strongly pro-American these days and that among many there, Osama is a hero. True to form, Wallace conveniently forgot to mention why so many Kuwaitis are anti-American. The reason is Bill Clinton. I was in Kuwait the summer before last and discovered how many Kuwaitis were perplexed by Bill Clinton and U.S. policies that for eight years had not only allowed Saddam Hussein to survive in power, but also actually helped him prosper. After refusing to allow U.N. inspectors into Iraq, the Clinton administration actually rewarded Saddam by allowing him to sell billions of dollars in oil. Though many Americans don't know this, Kuwaitis and Arabs do, leading them to believe wild conspiracies, promoted by Al-Jazeera and other Arab media, that Saddam is nothing more than an American stooge who has helped keep other Arab states close and dependent on the U.S. I don't agree with such theories but do think Clinton's policies and motives over the past eight years need more media scrutiny. But that's wishful thinking on my part. NewsMax Out Front Again and Again Our most devoted readers, some high in the U.S. government, know how often NewsMax gets the story or a handle on a major issue before anyone else. We were first out of the box linking the Sept. 11 attacks to Clinton's incredible handcuffing of the CIA with its human rights "scrub policy." As most media were claiming the U.S. antibiotic and smallpox vaccine stockpiles were more than sufficient, we hit hard with the facts that showed otherwise. Since then, Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson did an about-face on both counts and ordered massive increases of these stockpiles. NewsMax was also the first to point out that the U.S. has NO stockpile of potassium iodide, a solution necessary for people to have after a nuclear explosion to ward off illness and death. I was glad to read the New York Times report that the U.S. is now preparing to create a stockpile of potassium iodide. Still, more needs to be done to prepare Americans for an attack with weapons of mass destruction. President Bush said in his Atlanta speech that he was going to create civil defense programs across America. We're going to hold him to that promise. Korea Another story we were out front on was our worry about a war in Korea. Right after Sept. 11, NewsMax published a special briefing tape with Adm. Thomas Moorer and Gen. Jack Singlaub. Both men emphasized the real threat did not lie in Afghanistan but in several hot spots around the globe. Gen. Singlaub predicted that the temperature in Korea would rise quickly. It has. Someone in the Pentagon may have been listening to Singlaub, because soon after the NewsMax report, the U.S. suddenly dispatched additional fighter aircraft to South Korea and raised the alert status for U.S and South Korean forces there. These moves threw Kim Jong-il into a frenzy, and he has used his Korean Central News Agency to step up his threat of a war. Last week, his troops even fired at U.S. and South Korean forces across the DMZ. Tensions continued to rise last week as Japanese authorities closed down financial centers in Japan that flowed billions back to North Korea. Addenda Last-minute news and notes. CIA Director George Tenet may have more staying power than Bill Clinton. He's now off to Afghanistan, supposedly to hunt down Osama bin Laden himself. CIA insiders are still baffled that Tenet has survived, and thrived, despite Sept. 11. One reason I hear is that Bush feels comfortable with Tenet, a contemporary of his, as opposed to "dinosaurs" Powell, Rumsfeld, etc. Administration officials are not so sure bin Laden is where everyone thinks he is. He may be getting some help from Pakistan.. The CIA and Pentagon don't trust Pakistan's ISI, its secret police. Islamic fundamentalists still call the shots there, and President Musharraf's control of the ISI is questionable. Are we being lulled into a false sense of superiority after our Afghan Phase I campaign? The growing chorus of pundits who want us to level Saddam (a result I'd like to see) need to temper their calls with an appreciation that the U.S. could not pull off another Operation Desert Storm anytime soon. Our military, thanks to Clinton-Gore, is half what it was at the time of the Gulf War. At the New Orleans Conference, I spoke with a businessman who has many friends in the military. He reports how strained U.S. logistics and supplies have been just with the Afghan campaign, and he worries about a wider war. We need to worry about whether we have learned from Sept. 11. America needs to make defense and national security our national priorities – not the economy, as important as that is.
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