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Jonathan Karl: Sniping about terror war
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle made waves when he said the Bush administration wasn't doing enough to win the war on terrorism. Friday, CNN anchor Paula Zahn talked about the comments from Capitol Hill with congressional correspondent Jonathan Karl in Washington. The following is an edited transcript: ZAHN: Give us a sense of what the buzz is, that somehow the Bush administration is ignoring -- this is what some of them are saying -- the security of U.S. citizens. KARL: I mean, first you had Bob Graham, of course, the Democratic chairman -- at least chairman for a week or so more -- of the Intelligence Committee, who said that the problem here is that we're focused on Iraq. We're not paying attention to the real war going on, the war against terrorism, and we haven't won that war yet. What are we doing focused on Iraq? But then you had extraordinary comments yesterday from Tom Daschle, still the Democratic majority leader. He came out and had some extremely tough comments about the way the president has handled the war on terrorism and actually suggested that we are no better off than we were a year-and-a-half ago, no better off in winning the war against al Qaeda than we were even before the actions started in Afghanistan -- listen to what he had to say. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. TOM DASCHLE: Osama bin Laden is the sniper. He is terrorizing the country as the sniper terrorized Washington. And we finally found the sniper, and I would hope that we could find bin Laden. And I would hope that whatever resources have not been applied, whatever resources organizationally have not been utilized, that they be utilized, and the sooner the better. (END VIDEO CLIP) KARL: And in another quote, I mean, he even goes further. I mean, that's interesting, because he's comparing it to the sniper. But he says, we haven't found bin Laden, and we have not made any real progress in many of the other areas in terms of going after al Qaeda. ZAHN: Is that fair? KARL: Well, certainly the argument from the Republicans and from some other Democrats is that it is in no way fair. I mean, obviously, there have been some high-profile arrests. The Taliban and al Qaeda have been largely chased out of Afghanistan. There has been some real progress. There haven't been any major terrorism attacks on the United States, in the United States since September 11, 2001. So, some see this as extremely unfair. As a matter of fact, check out this response from Mark Foley, a Republican in the House of Representatives. He said that, "It looks like his patriotism" -- meaning Tom Daschle -- "has gone the way of his majority." ZAHN: Ouch! KARL: And the press release that went out with that actually had a headline, "Mark Foley Questions Tom Daschle's Patriotism." Trent Lott, maybe a more significant response, also said that this was inappropriate, unfortunate, over the top, across the line. And Trent Lott also said, hey, does Tom Daschle want to say this to Mary Landrieu, who is the one senator -- the one Democratic senator who still faces a runoff? She has to run -- she's from Louisiana. She has to run on December 7. And all of these Democrats got beat up, lost in the midterm elections, because they were seen as not being with the president on the terror campaign. So, here's Tom Daschle once again criticizing the president on that issue. ZAHN: Well, Senator Shelby, a Republican, was on the air here yesterday. KARL: Right. ZAHN: And he made very clear, he said we are vulnerable. And he said, where is the best place for a terrorist to go, given our open borders and the way we live in this country? America. So, you have Republicans, too, making it very clear that they think that the recent chatter the intelligence community is listening to is serious stuff. KARL: Oh, yes. And there is also Republican frustration and Democratic frustration with the way the FBI has been conducting itself in this terror campaign. I mean, think about it. It's personal on Capitol Hill. Capitol Hill was the site of the anthrax attacks. I mean, these were the people that were targeted by anthrax.
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