NBC's Gregory claimed "no one questions whether this president has been tough on terror," presented NIE Iraq conclusions as partisan attacks

On the September 27 broadcast of NBC's Nightly News, chief White House correspondent David Gregory, in reporting on the recently declassified portions of the April 2006 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), claimed that "no one questions whether this president has been tough on terror," and that "Democrats charge the U.S. is creating more terrorists because of Iraq." In fact, President Bush's "toughness" in the war on terrorism has been called into question several times, and the claim that "the U.S. is creating more terrorists because of Iraq" is not, as Gregory suggested, just the accusation of Democrats -- it is one of the "key judgments" of the NIE.

From the September 27 broadcast of NBC's Nightly News:

GREGORY: From Afghanistan to Iraq, no one questions whether this president has been tough on terror, but what is the result? Mr. Bush says one thing:

BUSH [video clip]: Five years after September the 11th, 2001, America is safer, and America is winning the war on terror.

GREGORY: This grim intelligence report says another: that "jihadists ... are increasing in both number and geographic dispersion." So, are we really winning? Three years ago, that was the question Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld asked in this memo to top advisers. "Are we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us?" Rumsfeld wrote. The intelligence report says no. Democrats charge the U.S. is creating more terrorists because of Iraq.

SEN. JOSEPH R. BIDEN (D-DE) [video clip]: It's not a surprise at all that we have been significantly limited in our ability to deal with worldwide terror because we are tied down, bogged down in, in Iraq.

Bush's "toughness" on terror is certainly not beyond question. The 9-11 Commission and investigative journalist Ron Suskind, in his book, The One Percent Doctrine:: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11 (Simon & Schuster, June 2006), have documented the ways in which the Bush administration largely ignored or downplayed the Al Qaeda threat prior to 9-11. Suskind also disclosed that in November 2001, when U.S., Pakistani, and Afghan forces reportedly had Osama bin Laden cornered in Afghanistan's Tora Bora region, the CIA explicitly warned Bush that the United States risked "los[ing] our prey" if more U.S. troops were not sent to help in the effort. Specifically, Bush was told that additional U.S. forces were needed because the Pakistani soldiers and local Afghan militias were "definitely not" equipped to capture bin Laden themselves. According to Suskind, Bush repeatedly received classified reports from the CIA in early December that the "back door is open" -- referring to the unmanned Afghanistan-Pakistan border. But the Bush administration never committed more troops to the area, and the Al Qaeda leader ultimately escaped.

In its final report, released in the summer of 2004, the 9-11 Commission -- the creation of which Bush opposed -- offered several recommendations to improve U.S. national security against terrorist threats. The Washington Post reported on December 6, 2005, that the disbanded 9-11 Commission had issued the Bush administration and the Republican-controlled Congress a "report card" to assess their performance in reforming the United States' terror-prevention capabilities. According to the Post:

The 10-member bipartisan panel -- whose book-length report about the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks became a surprise bestseller -- issued a "report card" that included 5 F's, 12 D's and two "incompletes" in categories including airline passenger screening and improving first responders' communication system.

The group also said there has been little progress in forcing federal agencies to share intelligence and terrorism information and sharply criticized government efforts to secure weapons of mass destruction or establish clear standards for the proper treatment of U.S. detainees.

[...]

According to the panel, the government deserves only one top grade, an A-minus, for its "vigorous effort against terrorist financing." The panel gave out B's and C's for government performance on issues such as the creation of a director of national intelligence and an ongoing presence in Afghanistan.

But in nearly half the categories, the government merited a D, an F or an incomplete grade, according to the report card. Kean and other commission members said at a news conference in Washington that all the goals should be achievable, but that many have languished amid political skirmishing and bureaucratic turf battles.

"None of this is rocket science," said John F. Lehman (R), a Navy secretary in the Reagan administration. "None of it is in the 'too hard' category."

Democrats have repeatedly criticized the Bush administration and the Republican Congress for failing to secure the nation's ports and chemical plants, and have proposed several pieces of legislation seeking to increase funding to secure these vulnerable sites. As Media Matters for America has noted, however, Republicans have consistently voted against these Democratic security proposals.

Also, the initial success of the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan has been overshadowed by a resurgence of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. As early as November 1, 2002, USA Today reported: "It has been a year since the Taliban regime was chased from Kabul, but the surge of tolerance that followed the war has been replaced by caution and growing signs that fundamentalists are making a comeback." The situation has only grown worse since then. The New York Times reported on September 5 that the Taliban resurgence gained strength, due in large part to the failure of the U.S.-led coalition and NATO to maintain security in Afghanistan's outlying provinces, and has transformed Afghanistan "into one of the most troubled fronts in the fight against terrorism."

Further, as Media Matters has noted, during a contentious interview with host Chris Wallace that aired on the September 24 edition of Fox Broadcasting Co.'s Fox News Sunday, former President Bill Clinton also took issue with Bush's "toughness" on terrorism. He asserted that if he were still president "we'd have more than 20,000 troops" in Afghanistan, whereas the Bush administration "thinks Afghanistan is only one-seventh as important as Iraq." Clinton also pointed to Bush administration failings prior to September 11, including demoting counterterrorism official Richard Clarke and not responding to the attack on the USS Cole.

Moreover, the assertion in the NIE itself, as Gregory noted -- that "jihadists ... are increasing in both number and geographic dispersion" -- is presumably a strong indication that Bush's "toughness" on terror is questionable.

Finally, Gregory falsely suggested that the argument that the war in Iraq is creating more terrorists is one made solely by Democrats. In fact the NIE concluded the "Iraq conflict has become the 'cause celebre' for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement."