Today is presidential election day in Haiti, but President Bush doesn’t seem to have taken notice. The last time Bush even mentioned Haiti was three months ago. In his State of the Union address, Bush said:

Abroad, our nation is committed to an historic, long-term goal — we seek the end of tyranny in our world. Some dismiss that goal as misguided idealism. In reality, the future security of America depends on it. … Every step toward freedom in the world makes our country safer — so we will act boldly in freedom’s cause.

But for the 8 million Haitians who live a mere 600 miles from the U.S. shore, Bush’s words ring hollow. Former Sen. Tom Daschle argues that the administration’s mishandling of Haiti “threatens further instability in a country not far from America’s shores.”

As just one example of the administration’s neglect of Haiti, simply compare the experiences of the Iraqi and Haitian elections.

Haiti

Voting has got off to a rough start in volatile Haiti as angry mobs stormed voting centers that failed to open on time, with one person dying of a heart attack and another of asphyxia. Several more people were injured or fainted as they were trampled or shoved by crowds that rushed voting offices on Tuesday.

Iraq

By increasing American troop strength in Iraq, banning all civilian car traffic and ordering a host of other security measures American and Iraqi forces widely thwarted insurgents who had threatened to wash the streets with blood on election day.

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President Bush and other senior administration officials have tried to defend illegal domestic spying by arguing that it could have prevented 9/11. Bush included the argument in his State of the Union address:

It is said that prior to the attacks of September the 11th, our government failed to connect the dots of the conspiracy. … So to prevent another attack — based on authority given to me by the Constitution and by statute — I have authorized a terrorist surveillance program…

This argument is false, as several sources, including the Washington Post, have pointed out. But it also runs contrary to the administration’s previous line on the attacks. In 2002, President Bush and other top officials told Americans that September 11 could not have been prevented:

President Bush, 6/4/02:

Q Had the reform been put in place beforehand, if the FBI had been –

THE PRESIDENT: I haven’t seen any evidence –

Q — could the attacks have been stopped?

THE PRESIDENT: I’ve seen no evidence today that said this country could have prevented the attack.

FBI Director Robert Mueller, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, 6/2/02:

U.S. intelligence agencies could have better analyzed information that pointed to Sept. 11, but they probably could not have prevented the attacks, the attorney general and FBI director said Sunday. …

“The information we now have does not indicate that there was a substantial likelihood of detecting this,” Ashcroft said.

So, to recap: President Bush was wrong in 2002, and he’s wrong now. The 9/11 attacks could have been prevented (as the 9/11 Commission found), but his illegal domestic spying program would not have done the job.

Twenty-three more al Qaeda members are on the loose after a prison escape last Friday in Sanaa, Yemen. The group includes Jamal Mohammed al-Badawi, the mastermind behind the USS Cole attack that killed 17 US sailors in Yemen in October 2000.

Why would the Bush administration allow terrorists with American blood on their hands to be held in an insecure location? This was not the first time that suspected Al Qaeda members escaped from prison in Yemen — at least 10 members escaped from a prison in Aden in 2003.

And this latest escape comes just a few months after an escape by four top Al Qaeda suspects who were held by US forces in an American military detention center in Bagram, Afghanistan last year.

President Bush continues to talk tough on terrorism, but more than four years after the 9/11 attacks, what does he have to show for all of his talk?

– Global terrorist attacks have tripled on President Bush’s watch;

– The Bush administration has received failing and mediocre grades on fighting terrorists by the 9/11 Commission;

– By invading Iraq without a plan to stabilize the country, President Bush created a new haven and terrorist training ground for Al Qaeda; and

– The Bush administration let top Al Qaeda leaders slip away in the early days of the war in Afghanistan.

The Bush failures in the fight against terrorism keep piling up, and Americans are less safe because of them.

– Brian Katulis