-Caveat Lector- >From SMH
Bush and the bogymen August 10 2002 Madison, Mississippi, in America's deep south, in the middle of the hottest summer on record, is a pretty laid-back place - an unlikely location for the President to declare war. Even so, when George Bush arrived at the local high school on Wednesday, speculation about America's plans to invade Iraq was reaching fever pitch in Washington. But Bush was not there to launch a pre-emptive strike on Iraq but on the Democrats - firing a few opening shots in the battle for the congressional election due in November. In the war with the Democrats, Madison, Mississippi is strategic territory. It's in a seat the Democrats would love to win in November. It's also 20 kilometres from the headquarters of WorldCom Inc, the communications giant that collapsed under a mountain of debt leaving 8500 Americans without jobs and many more facing huge losses on their retirement investments. Bush was in town to let the ordinary folk know the Republicans felt their pain. "You know what it means to be let down by shady corporate practices," he told some former WorldCom workers. "For corporate leaders found guilty of fraud and theft, there will be no more easy money, just hard time." Unfortunately, the Republican candidate there, Charles "Chip" Pickering, holds the dubious record of being the beneficiary of the largest political donations from WorldCom to a member of Congress. For the Democrats, who are trying to shift the political debate from the war on terrorism to corporate misbehaviour and the stalled American economy, Pickering's WorldCom donations are a godsend. The southern Democrats are running a "Little Guy versus Big Guy" message on corporate sleaze and they have called on Pickering to give back the WorldCom donations, after two of the company's senior officers were arrested on fraud charges. Now even the Republicans concede the Mississippi race could become a microcosm for the country if the economy and corporate abuse become the dominant issues in the election. In a trend that spells trouble for Bush and the Republicans, less than a year after the horrendous attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon on September 11, the majority of Americans are turning their attention from the war on terrorism to the country's economic and financial troubles. A fascinating in-depth poll by The Wall Street Journal and the television company NBC last month found that for many Americans, some 52 per cent, the effects of September 11 were fading and were "not something I think and worry about regularly". At the same time, only 40 per cent of Americans believed the country was heading in the right direction, down dramatically from September last year when more than 70 per cent thought it was on the right track. While Bush's personal approval rating remains high - about 67 per cent of Americans like the job he is doing, especially in the war on terrorism - there are growing doubts about his ability to handle the economy. Nearly half of those polled believed that Bush was more concerned about the interests of large corporations than the interests of average Americans. There is a feeling that Bush and some of his cabinet are corporate insiders who benefited from some of the practices now under scrutiny. While Bush was in Mississippi, his Vice-President, Dick Cheney, was being hounded with questions about his time as CEO of the oil company Halliburton, a job that netted him a $30 million fortune in shares and options before he went to the White House. Halliburton is now under investigation by the US Securities and Exchange Commission for accounting irregularities. In California to campaign for Republican candidates, the Vice- President was dogged by demonstrators chanting "Cheney is a corporate crook". Questioned by reporters about the SEC investigation, Cheney ducked, saying he could not respond because "there are editorial writers all over America poised to put pen to paper and condemn me for exercising undue, improper influence, if I say too much about it, since this is a matter pending before an independent regulatory agency". Cheney's personal woes are undercutting the message from the White House that the war on terrorism is still the country's number one goal and the economy is on the road to recovery. But adding to Bush's troubles is a wave of bad economic news. The unemployment rate is stuck at almost 6 per cent, the stock market is still wildly gyrating and some economists fear that America might be headed for a double-dip recession, a suggestion rejected by Bush. Deeply troubling, too, is the economic crisis in Latin America. This week the Bush Administration was forced to drop its opposition to bailing out Brazil and support a $30 billion International Monetary Fund rescue to stave off a collapse that could have undermined America's shaky recovery. Both Argentina and Uruguay are also in economic meltdown. Little wonder Bush wants Americans to focus on the war on terrorism as they head into the first election since September 11. Bush is, to some extent, a victim of his own success. Less than a year after 3056 people lost their lives in the terrorist attacks, most Americans feel secure in their own country. On the streets, even in Washington, there is little sense of people living in fear or under onerous security restrictions unless, of course, they are of Arab descent. The war against al-Qaeda and the Taliban has been largely viewed by voters as a success. There is a new government in Afghanistan, the refugees are returning home, the coalition partners have held together and, critically, there have been few American casualties. The brunt of the war has been borne by Afghan civilians and local militias, something that raises little concern in America. Revelations that some 54 civilians were killed when an American aircraft apparently shot up a wedding party by accident prompted just one question from senators when the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, and his senior commander, Tommy Franks, reported to them last week on the Afghanistan campaign, Operation Enduring Freedom. But as Bush becomes increasingly vulnerable over the economy and corporate fraud, some Democrats believe he is no longer above criticism over the war on terrorism. In an unusual attack last week, Senator John Kerry claimed that Bush's reluctance to put sufficient US ground troops into Afghanistan in December allowed thousands of al-Qaeda operatives to escape during the attacks on the Tora Bora caves. "When given the opportunity to destroy al- Qaeda at Tora Bora, the President turned not to the best military in the history of man - this President turned to Afghan warlords who only a week before were on the other side," he said. Senator Max Cleland, a southern Democrat from Georgia, needled Rumsfeld by referring to "Operation Enduring Frustration". "The frustration continues because we still haven't killed or captured Osama bin Laden and his terrorist cadre. Do you happen to know where he is?" he asked Rumsfeld. And despite the early battlefield successes in Afghanistan, there is a sense that the war on terrorism has stalled. Democrat senators are watching with growing unease the re- emerging hostilities between the rival Afghan warlords, the daily reports of assassination attempts, firefights, car bombings and explosions. So far this unease is not shared by the American public. So, after weeks of being on the back foot over corporate scandals, Bush is refocusing voters' attention on the war on terrorism. At the top of the agenda is toppling Saddam Hussein. This week, military planning for an assault on Iraq was again under discussion at the White House, in the face of the increasing opposition of America's allies and some inside the US military. A rash of leaks about American war plans is one illustration of the deep divisions in the US military over the campaign. The latest, a Defence Intelligence Agency analysis published inUSA Today, underscores fears in the military that without allied support US forces would be forced to fight a bloody campaign in heavily populated urban centres in Iraq if Saddam Hussein digs in with his loyal forces. "The US military has a genuine and well-founded reluctance to engage in urban warfare because of the high risk of significant US casualties and the 'collateral damage' - code for civilian casualties," the report warned. In Mississippi, Bush brushed over the concerns of US allies and hammered home the message that winning the war on terrorism was his number one priority. "My most important job is to rally our Government to do everything humanly possible to prevent the enemy from taking innocent life again," he said. While promising he would be "patient", Bush launched another tirade at Iraq: "There are countries which harbour and develop weapons of mass destruction, countries run by people who poison their own people, countries whose leadership has got a terrible record when it comes to valuing life. We owe it to our children to deal with these threats." Earlier this year, some Democrats feared Bush would launch an attack on Iraq before the November elections in an "October surprise". But the sheer scale of the operation, the divisions in the US military and the opposition from its allies make this appear unlikely. And despite the war rhetoric from Bush, it was the ongoing revelations about corporate sleaze that dominated the prime-time airwaves this week. With one big name after another swept up in the scandal - Enron, Arthur Andersen, Xerox and America's home decorating queen Martha Stewart - voter attention has been diverted. The day after Bush spoke in Mississippi, investigators revealed that WorldCom's fraudulent losses may be even higher than first revealed, up to $US6 billion ($11 billion). At Democratic campaign headquarters in Mississippi that news will be welcome. The local candidate, Ronnie Shows, is telling voters the election will be about jobs and greed. In a state where the candidates are indistinguishable on social issues, both proclaiming to be churchgoing, "pro-life", "pro-gun" family men, the local Democrats are gearing up for a populist contest between "the working people and the corporate elite". A few in the Democratic Party are wary of running too hard on scandals. Just two days before the WorldCom fraud broke, one of the top Wall Street analysts who had boosted the company donated $US100,000 to the Democrats' Senate campaign. There is enough mud to stick to both sides. But among Republicans who thought they would storm the electorate after September 11, there is a growing sense of anxiety as day after the day the corporate scandals continue to unfold. Some are hoping the September 11 anniversaries will remind Americans of just how much Bush has achieved in the war on terrorism. Better still, one suggested, would be finding Osama bin Laden's body before they go to the polls. 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