RNC Mailing Accuses Pa. Democrat Of Helping To Start the War in Iraq
BY ELI LAKE - Staff Reporter of the Sun October 23, 2006 URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/42019
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
WASHINGTON — Voters in Pennsylvania's rural, conservative 10th Congressional District received an unlikely mailing earlier this month accusing a former Navy lieutenant of helping start the Iraq war.
Quoting a 2004 article, "Lie Factory," that appeared in Mother Jones magazine and relied on interviews with a former Pentagon analyst turned White House foe, Karen Kwiatkowski, the mailing highlights Christopher Carney's role in a small intelligence analysis shop inside the Pentagon before the Iraq war. The top of the mailing warns voters, "Chris Carney failed our nation once." "Don't give Chris Carney a chance to FAIL us again," the next page says.
The mailing may seem par for the course in an election season in which Republican incumbents are vulnerable to attacks on their support for an unpopular war. But its return address is the Republican Federal Committee of Pennsylvania. The mailing's target is Mr. Carney, who some see as one of the national Democratic Party's brightest hopes to wrest control of the House of Representatives in 2006.
The political dissonance was amplified on October 19 when President Bush stumped for Mr. Carney's rival and the Republican incumbent, Donald Sherwood. Two days earlier, Mr. Carney was in New York for a fund-raiser hosted by one of the president's original foreign policy advisers in 2000, Richard Perle.
When The New York Sun first interviewed Mr. Carney in January, he was widely believed by even his closest supporters to be a long shot, at best, to unseat Mr. Sherwood, who ran unopposed in 2004. But a simmering scandal involving an extramarital affair, along with the rising anti-Republican sentiment throughout the country, has tightened the gap between the candidates.
Indeed, Mr. Carney says his latest internal polls put him 15 percentage points ahead of Mr. Sherwood. In the last three weeks, his campaign has run ads reminding voters of the 2004 scandal, in which Mr. Sherwood was forced to settle with a former staffer, Cynthia Ore, after she publicly accused him of trying to strangle her. Mr. Sherwood told Capitol Hill police at the time that he was trying to give Ms. Ore a back rub.
In an interview yesterday, Mr. Carney told the Sun: "It is kind of ironic that a Republican is accusing me of starting the war. I am backing off my support for the war. I am unhappy with the preparation and the planning, like a lot of Americans."
But it may be even more ironical that Mr. Carney, a lifelong Democrat, is a member of a party whose most moderate leaders now accuse the Bush administration of deliberately misleading Congress and America in the run-up to the Iraq war. Before the invasion, Mr. Carney, working as part of a small Pentagon shop known as the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group, helped prepare some of the most disputed intelligence on Iraq, alleging that the country maintained ties to Al Qaeda
While subsequent documents uncovered in the Iraq war have confirmed contacts between Saddam Hussein's intelligence chief and Al Qaeda, the 9/11 Commission concluded that those ties did not amount to an operational relationship.
Nonetheless, Mr. Carney stands by his intelligence work. Yesterday, nearly two weeks before Election Day, he said: "Some of the party disagrees with me on this, but I know what I saw. Nonetheless, the party respects that I was in a unique position to know this. They like the idea they have a Democrat strong on national defense joining their ranks, especially on the war on terror." He added that his analysis predicted the current insurgency in Iraq.
Mr. Carney said that if the Democrats win a House majority, he doesn't expect them to begin hearings on prewar intelligence. America faces too many problems to begin "witch hunting," he said.
"I myself believe, if Democrats do win control of the House, we work on moving things forward," Mr. Carney said. "Certainly I am a voice that is unique within the party. I would lend my voice to the debate."
On the Iraq war, Mr. Carney said he favors a withdrawal of troops, but only after Iraqi battalions are fully trained. "For every fully trained Iraqi battalion, an American trained battalion should come home," he said.
Mr. Carney's position on Iraq differs from that of a Pennsylvania Democrat, Rep. Jack Murtha, who has said America should set a date and begin withdrawing troops. But Mr. Carney counts Mr. Murtha as a political ally. In August, Mr. Murtha even promised Mr. Carney a seat on the powerful House Appropriations Committee, the congressional panel that spends the federal budget.
Yesterday, Mr. Carney said, "If I win I am sure I will get a seat on appropriations." He added that he would be interested in gaining the seat to oversee the budgets for the intelligence community and the military, but also to have a chance to win projects for his district.
When asked to comment on the support his candidacy has received, from figures as diverse as Messrs. Perle and Murtha, Mr. Carney said, "I think when it comes to a voice on national security, I will be one of the strongest. Richard Perle and John Murtha recognize that."