ALEX CHADWICK, host:
From the studios of NPR West, this is DAY TO DAY. I'm Alex Chadwick.
Coming up, oil companies have very high hopes for a very deep well in the Gulf of Mexico. We'll have that story. First, the lead.
President Bush today gives the second in a series of speeches about the war on terror. The remarks today coincide with the release of a new White House report called The National Strategy for Combating Terrorism. This document details government efforts to prevent another 9/11 and what's next in the administration's fight against global terrorism.
We're joined now by NPR White House correspondent, David Greene.
David, welcome back. What is the essence of what the White House wants out in this report today?
DAVID GREENE: Yeah, thanks, Alex. Well, I think the White House wants Americans to know that they are on top of the terrorist threat five years after 9/11, that they know the threat from terrorism is evolving and that in the White House view, their fight against terrorism has been successful and has made the United States safer.
But it's a pretty sober report, Alex, and the White House acknowledges that. Spokesman Tony Snow said this morning it wouldn't serve their interests to take a rosy-eyed view of the threat from terrorism, and they certainly don't. They talk about how terrorists have succeeded in using propaganda and the Internet to their advantage, and that terrorists still at this point want to hit the U.S. with an even more catastrophic attack than ever before.
CHADWICK: Well, they do lay out successes and remaining challenges. I was interested to see that the second success that I read in their summary is they're building a multi-national coalition and, quote, together we're working to secure a united, stable and democratic Iraq.
I'm not sure everyone would consider that an actual success at this point.
GREENE: Not at this point. They do make one of the points that one of the central goals in terms of fighting terrorism is to establish democracies which they say are less hospitable for terrorists and that Iraq is one of the places where they believe they're doing that. They even say that the new government in Iraq is an ally in the war on terror.
The president's often talked about Iraq as the central front in the war on terrorism, but given that, it's mentioned relatively few times in this report. The focus seems to be really on terrorism more broadly, and the White House in this report really does respond to criticism. It specifically says that terrorism is out there as a threat not because of the president's policies in Iraq and not because of his policies in fighting terrorism, that these threats existed when he came into office. They really materialized on 9/11, and he's worked to fight it.
CHADWICK: Who wrote this report for the White House?
GREENE: Well, the president has an in-house homeland security adviser, Fran Townsend. It was her and her staff, and they say it's been in the works for a long while and it's an update of an earlier report. They say it does not coincide with the 9/11 anniversary or the election season.
But you know, Alex, this is the issue that really is best suited for the White House to really help Republicans this year. Poll after poll shows that the president gets fairly high marks on terrorism, not on Iraq. And I think one of the things that the White House is trying to do here is to remind people at a time when they're deeply concerned about the war on Iraq that terrorism is a more broad subject and that the White House is actually on top of it.
CHADWICK: Any response from the Democrats yet?
GREENE: Of course. In Washington, responses come very quickly, and on Capitol Hill the Democratic leadership put out a statement almost immediately which said that years of failed Republican policies have made America less safe and less able to effectively fight terrorism and that Democrats are ready to take this country in a new direction.
You know, the White House lists a lot of challenges in the war on terror in this report. I think they are things that the Democrats would say are failures, so that's going to be one of the debates this fall.
CHADWICK: NPR White House correspondent David Greene. David, thanks.
GREENE: My pleasure. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
