Giuliani Resembles Bush on Terror War

28 October 2007

WASHINGTON - Rudy Giuliani, to quote a Democratic rival, would be like President Bush on steroids in the way he would go about protecting the U.S. from terrorists. In reality, Giuliani doesn't seem very different from Bush on the issue.

The former New York mayor says the government shouldn't be shy about eavesdropping on citizens. He is prepared to use military force to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons and root out terrorists in Pakistan. And he opposes a U.S. pullout from Iraq.

Former FBI Director Louis Freeh, a Giuliani friend and adviser on homeland security issues, said in an interview: "I would say they're very much joined at the hip on these policies, and particularly the mind-set and commitment of both the president and Mayor Giuliani to stay on offense."

Giuliani sounds more muscular.

Bush talks about terrorism, while Giuliani doggedly refers to "the terrorists' war on us." It is the first item on a little card he carries with him listing 12 things he would do as president: "I will keep America on offense in the terrorists' war on us." He constantly accuses Democrats of being afraid to use the term "Islamic terrorists."

His tough talk prompted Democrat John Edwards to quip that Giuliani would be George Bush on steroids.

Many Republicans like that idea, although the party's libertarians find it alarming that a GOP president would vigorously pursue expanded government power.

Giuliani's message is, "'I'm a tough SOB; you give me the power, and I'll protect you,'" David Keene, who heads the American Conservative Union, said of the former New York mayor. "I'm not overly pleased with Bush, but I get the impression Rudy would be far more enthusiastic about it than some in the Bush administration."

"They might argue that it's necessary," Keene said. "He might argue that it's fun."

Keene acknowledges he is in the minority among Republicans. Most, he says, are willing to give the government more power in times of war.

That is an argument made by retired federal judge Michael Mukasey, a longtime friend of Giuliani's who was advising the campaign until Bush picked him to serve as attorney general.

Both Mukasey and Giuliani back the Patriot Act, which expanded law enforcement's access to private telephone, e-mail, financial and other records, among many other provisions.

Giuliani also argues against limits on domestic spying and what he calls legal interrogation, although he hasn't said just how far he thinks CIA interrogation tactics should go before they are considered to be torture.

He said Wednesday he wasn't sure if waterboarding, which simulates drowning, is actually torture.

"It depends on how it's done. It depends on the circumstances. It depends on who does it," he said, adding that he didn't know if "liberal media" had accurately described the technique.

"Americans should never be for torture, he said. But "we can't abandon aggressive questioning of people who are intent on coming here to kill us or killing us overseas," he said.

Giuliani has surrounded himself with foreign policy advisers who, like several Bush advisers, are neoconservatives — less skeptical of government than traditional conservatives and more interested in foreign intervention and spreading U.S. values abroad.

Among them is author Norman Podhoretz, who argues for bombing Iran to stop it from building a nuclear arsenal. Podhoretz says Iran, like Iraq and Afghanistan, is another front in the same war sparked by the Sept. 11 attacks. He calls this World War IV, the Cold War being World War III.

Fear of terrorism among GOP voters is an advantage for Giuliani, who is seen as the calm, decisive leader who guided a New York devastated by the Sept. 11 attacks.

The image has helped Giuliani stay ahead, or close to the top, in polls, both nationally and in some early primary states, despite a record on social issues that might otherwise alienate social conservatives.

"I probably have one of the strongest arguments to make about executive experience and handling crisis and getting results," he said in an interview last month with The Associated Press. "So in an era in which we're concerned about terrorism, I would think that would give me a strong argument to make."

Among Republicans who care most about terrorism, rating it "very" or "extremely" important, Giuliani gets the most support — 26 percent to Fred Thompson's 18 percent and John McCain's 17 percent — according to an AP-Ipsos poll conducted in June.

Yet Sept. 11 also provokes heated criticism of Giuliani.

Some firefighter unions and family members of those killed are campaigning against him, distributing an anti-Giuliani video and holding protests outside Giuliani events.

Those critics say that he should never have put the city's emergency command center inside the World Trade Center when the complex was already a potential target for terrorists, and that he failed to make sure firefighters had working radios, making it impossible to learn the complex's towers were about to collapse.

"Virtually the whole thing goes back to him with the radios," Jim Riches, a deputy fire chief whose son was killed on Sept. 11, says in the video. "And my son is dead because of it."

Critics also say Freeh is a poor choice for an adviser since the FBI under his leadership was faulted by the Sept. 11 commission for being ill-prepared for the terror attacks.

And foes say Giuliani is exaggerating when he claims, as he often does, to have studied Islamic terrorism for 30 years, because as a federal prosecutor, Justice Department official and mayor, Giuliani's primary focus was crime.

That criticism is "both revisionist history and just not true," said Joe Lhota, a former deputy mayor and a Giuliani adviser. "His terrorism credentials go back to the '70s during the Ford Administration, when he was on then-President Ford's task force on counterterrorism."

Lhota said the World Trade Center offered several advantages over other potential emergency command center sites, and he points out the Secret Service and CIA had facilities there.

Giuliani allies say much of the criticism is political, pointing to the firefighters unions' endorsement of Democrats.

"He's not somebody new coming into this game. Rudy Giuliani did not wake up to terrorism on 9/11," Lhota said. "He's lived through it. His experience is hands-on experience."

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