9/11 Report A Political Wildcard

By David Paul Kuhn,
CBSNews.com Chief Political Writer

The deadline for the report's release is July 26, but sources close to the commission tell CBS News that it will likely be made public "a few days before" to avoid coinciding with the opening day of the Democratic National Convention in Boston.

This week marked the beginning of the final review process before the report's publication. For both the Bush and Kerry campaigns, the report is one of the key markers of this election year, like the June 30 handover of partial sovereignty to Iraqis, the political conventions and the presidential debates.

But the degree to which the final report will impact the election is entirely dependent on its content.

"It's hard to tell without seeing the report because of anything explosive in the report that we are unaware of, which I seriously doubt, but I suppose there could be," says former Sen. Warren Rudman, a moderate Republican who co-chaired the bipartisan U.S. Commission on National Security, which predicted a direct attack on American soil prior to Sept. 11, 2001.

"I think that the American people are paying much more attention to what is going on in Iraq rather than reports of what could have been done," Rudman adds.

Provided there are no new bombshells in the reports, experts agree Mr. Bush is far more likely to be judged by voters based on what he did after Sept. 11, 2001, than before. Recent polling indicates that the president's reelection hopes are almost entirely tied to the situation in Iraq.

The problem facing Mr. Bush is that because weapons of mass destruction have not been discovered, the secondary justifications for the war could also appear unfounded. Vice President Dick Cheney, and to a lesser degree Mr. Bush, continue to allege that there were ties between al Qaeda and officials working for Saddam Hussein.

An interim report, released last week by the bipartisan commission, stated that there was "no credible link" between Iraq and the Sept. 11 attacks. It further disclosed that while there have been "reports" that "contacts between Iraq and al-Qaida also occurred," those possible contacts "do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship."

Prior to the war, the crux of the Bush administration's al Qaeda-Saddam argument was that there were ties and those ties warranted preemptive military action. The White House dilemma lays in the sense of urgency that argument created, both in the United Nations and with the American public.

"Kerry is in a somewhat different position because he went along with the war," says Stephen Macedo, a Princeton University political scientist. "But he went along with it as many people did in this country, based on intelligence claims that the administration advanced that we were led to believe were backed up by solid evidence."

Like Rudman, Macedo is skeptical of the report's impact on the election unless there are new bombshells. He points out that "evidence indicates that the American public was misled." But, he says, Mr. Bush's campaign will only be damaged if the report supports this allegation by undermining the administration's case for war.

"It's possible that the administration was misled," Macedo continues. "But they also seem to have constructed the evidence in a way that reflected their own pre-commitments and longstanding desire to settle scores with Iraq."

Although former President Bill Clinton may also be heavily criticized in the report, unlike Mr. Bush, Mr. Clinton is not running for office.

"It hurts Clinton's legacy a little bit, but it clearly hurts this president if the conclusions are directed at what the Bush administration didn't do after being briefed by the Clinton administration [on al Qaeda]," says James Thurber, a presidential historian at American University in Washington D.C. "They were briefed and all the leaks say he didn't take it very seriously."

Thurber emphasizes that it is not just that the report may definitively state there is no evidence that Saddam had ties to al Qaeda, but that it will also "not help Bush unless he acts quickly to resolve problems that they identify."

Among the report's most widely expected conclusions is that there needs to be one super intelligence agency headed by an intelligence czar. Currently, nearly a dozen U.S. intelligence agencies exist. While the CIA chief is the symbolic head of America's intelligence community, he holds budgetary authority over the CIA alone.

Thurber points out that the onus will also be on Kerry to respond to the report. "He has to react to it, too," Thurber adds. "He has to say what he is going to do."

The estimated 500-page report will be available in bookstores nationwide for $10 a copy. The White House is currently reviewing drafts of the report in order to assure no classified material is made public, as mandated by law.

At the same time, critics point out that the review process allows the Bush campaign to prepare its response to the final report, should it blame the current administration for negligence. It is unclear if the Kerry campaign will also be briefed prior to the report's release. Once source tells CBS News that Kerry will be told about the report's content, "when appropriate."

If, as Macedo suspects, the report confirms that the war in Iraq was a war of choice, not one of necessity, then it could be especially damning to Mr. Bush's reelection bid.

"An optional war means it has to be going well," Macedo says. "Otherwise it will seem to be a choice that was unnecessary and that may have gotten us into more trouble."

By David Paul Kuhn