WASHINGTON -- As the country moves from the holiday season into the political season, a terrorist attack on the US homeland is the biggest uncertainty for a Bush administration that has billed itself as the nation's chief protector in a dangerous world.
In speech after speech, President Bush has emphasized his administration's pledge never to forget the lessons of Sept. 11. He says the top goal of his administration is to prevent another attack, and he has reorganized some parts of federal government with that in mind.
But the extraordinary precautions that federal officials took to thwart potential terrorist attacks over the holidays can't help but remind Americans of their vulnerability. And while Democratic opponents of the administration are unanimous in their hope that that vulnerability is not exposed with deadly results, they have also argued that Bush has done far too little to protect the country from another attack.
He has refused to adequately reimburse state and local officials for homeland security costs, they argue, and has ignored dangerous gaps in air cargo and port security.
"There's a growing preparedness gap in this administration's homeland security policies," Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, one of nine Democrats seeking the party nomination to challenge Bush, said in detailing his plans to protect the nation from terrorist attack. Some political observers believe that if the country were to suffer another attack, after the initial pain and shock wore off, the administration would have to answer hard questions that would erode the White House's most important reelection message: The president, not his Democratic foe, is best able to protect the nation.
As unpleasant as it is to contemplate, a terrorist attack against the United States would rival the capture of Osama bin Laden in shaping next year's election, say some political observers, who add that the ramifications of a strike against the country could be significant and widespread. "To the extent that history is a guide, people are going to rally around the president," said Mark Mellman, a Democratic pollster. "But eventually, questions will be asked. Those questions will come quicker and will have a much harder political edge to them than the questions that came after 9/11."
Even staunch opponents of the Bush administration were slow to ask tough questions of the administration after the Sept. 11 attacks. Bush, after all, had only been in office for nine months. And while terrorists had made a previous attempt to bring down the World Trade Center and had even shown a willingness to use passenger planes as bombs, few imagined the horrible scenario that unfolded.
If there is a next time, Mellman said, "people will want to know why" an attack could be carried out against a country that knows it is being targeted.
As recently as Monday, Bush said, "Our government is doing everything we can to protect our country" from attack. Democrats, however, disagree strongly with that notion, and their criticisms today could form the basis of questions after an attack.
US Representative Edward J. Markey, a Malden Democrat who is a member of the House Select Committee on Homeland Security, has repeatedly warned that air cargo is still open to tampering in a way that could facilitate a deadly attack.
The Bush administration, Markey said in a statement released after the threat level was raised, "is recklessly refusing to require the closing of the most obvious remaining hole in our aviation security system, commercial cargo. As a routine matter, commercial cargo is not physically screened by anyone, even when it is carried on passenger planes."
Markey said he wants the Transportation Security Administration to require that commercial cargo be screened like luggage.
"Americans who travel with their wrapped gifts are forced to open their packages for inspection, but possible terrorists could ship a bomb in a cargo hold because there is no screening of those boxes," Markey said. "Any one of those cargo packages could be a bomb, yet they are waved onto passenger planes without so much as a boarding pass. This is clearly unacceptable and reckless in this day and age, regardless of today's particular threat level."
Ann Davis, a Boston-based spokeswoman for the TSA, said it is true that the agency itself does not screen cargo packages, but she said companies that are members of its "known shipper program" take responsibility for their own cargo. The companies have to show a long and safe record of shipping cargo to be members of the TSA's shipping program.
Davis and Markey disagree on whether current technology is adequate to require that all cargo be screened.
Peter Feaver, associate professor of political science at Duke University, said Americans now have a much higher expectation of airport security after Sept. 11. Their tolerance for a catastrophe stemming from any lapse in airport security, he said, is likely to be very low.
That, however, does not mean that any terrorist attack anywhere would necessarily doom Bush's reelection prospects.
"The public is already steeled to a certain extent against another terrorist attack," Feaver said. "They do not equate success in the war on terror with never getting struck again."
That mindset represents a victory of sorts for the administration, which has worked to hammer home the point that precautions can't guarantee safety.
Yesterday, White House spokesman Trent Duffy said people understand the limits of any security effort.
"Despite all the effort, all the manpower and resources we've poured into homeland security, we are still a free society," Duffy said. "There are terrorists that wish to do us harm, and they'll look for any way to do that."
Asked how much responsibility the administration should expect to shoulder if terrorists succeed in striking the United States again, Duffy said fighting terrorism is "not just a federal responsibility. It's a national responsibility. State and local governments are responsible. Every single American can be part of homeland security."
Duffy reiterated Bush's contention that toppling Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq has also contributed to making Americans safer at home.
But many Democrats hotly dispute that assertion.
Retired general Wesley K. Clark, for example, argues that the Bush administration should be working harder to find bin Laden, leader of the Al Qaeda terrorist group responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks, which has threatened another attack. Another Democratic presidential candidate, Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, said the administration should be sending more money to local governments to make sure they don't lay off police and firefighters, first responders in case of a terrorist attack. Kerry agreed. He said he would establish an Orange Alert Fund to pay for police overtime and other security enhancements. He would establish a Citizen Preparedness Initiative to make sure Americans understood how to respond to terrorist threats and to recruit citizens to help police and firefighters prepare for a possible attack. And he said he would start a Homeland Security Corps to provide cities and towns with the resources to hire 5,000 more law enforcement officials who are trained to protect the homeland.
"The most basic responsibility of government is to provide for the common defense," Kerry said. "We need an administration with a real plan to make America more secure."
