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Trial To Turn Spotlight On 9/11 Issues, Which Suits Bush

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By STEVEN LEE MYERS, The New York Times

Published: February 12, 2008

WASHINGTON - Harsh interrogations and Guantanamo Bay, secret prisons and warrantless eavesdropping, the war against al-Qaida and the one in Iraq. On issue after issue, President Bush has showed little indication that he will shrink from the most controversial decisions of his tenure.

With the decision to charge six Guantanamo detainees with the attacks of Sept. 11, and to seek the death penalty for the crimes, many of those issues will now be back in the spotlight. In an election year, that appears to be where Bush wants the focus to be.

The White House said Monday that Bush had no role in the decision to file charges now against the six detainees, leaving the strategy for prosecuting them to the military.

Still, the cases soon to be put before military tribunals - including that against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who has described himself as the mastermind of the attacks - represent a major part of "the unfinished business" that Bush and his aides talk about when they vow "to sprint to the finish," as one aide did again on Monday.

Bush never sounds surer of himself than when the subject is Sept. 11, even when his critics argue he has squandered the country's moral authority, violated American and international law and led the United States into the foolhardy distraction of Iraq.

"Six-and-a-half years ago, our country faced the worst attack in our history," Bush said late last week, speaking to the Conservative Political Action Conference. "I understood immediately that we would have to act boldly to protect the American people. So we've gone on the offense against these extremists. We're staying on the offense, and we will not relent until we bring them to justice."

The 9/11 candidate, Rudolph Giuliani of New York, may have dropped his bid for the White House. But the 9/11 presidency is far from over.

On the question of warrantless wiretapping, widely expanded after the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush is pushing to make permanent legislation that last year made a once-secret program legal, despite a storm of protest that has reverberated since 2005, when the program was disclosed.

Only a year ago, Iraq appeared to have deflated the president's popularity and eroded his standing even among Republicans and the Pentagon's generals.

But Bush appears to have laid a foundation to keep more than 130,000 American troops on the ground in a mission he has justified as part of a broader fight against terrorism, despite an overwhelming groundswell against an unpopular conflict.

Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates on Monday essentially endorsed a "pause" in further troop withdrawals once the buildup of five extra combat brigades ends this summer.

In each of these cases - the military tribunals, wiretapping legislation, Iraq - the White House seems eager to lock in as many of the president's policies as possible before he leaves office in 11 months.

And as it looks ahead to the November elections, the White House seems to have concluded that each is politically sustainable and even favorable for a Republican candidate and Bush's own legacy.

Whether the White House will succeed, and November will certainly be the measure, remains to be seen.

Democrats have battled before, with mixed success, against Republican efforts to portray them as weak on defense. This time, Democrats sound determined to fight back more forcefully.

"I wish they had as coherent a strategy for fighting the war on terror as they do for politicizing the war on terror," Rep. Rahm Emanual of Illinois, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said Monday.

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