Is U.S. Safer Since 9/11? Clinton and Rivals Spar: The Bush administration's efforts to thwart terrorism at home have created a fissure among the three leading Democratic presidential candidates, with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton coming under attack for saying that America is safer now than before 9/11 -- contrary to a popular line of argument among some Democratic officials.

In a televised debate on Sunday night, Mrs. Clinton, who has tried to minimize her differences with her rivals on commander-in-chief issues, bluntly disagreed with a main rival, former Senator John Edwards, who had just said that the administration's so-called war on terror was little more than a slogan.

"I believe we are safer than we were," Mrs. Clinton said. "We are not yet safe enough, and I have proposed over the last year a number of policies that I think we should be following."

The senator, a New York Democrat, was referring to domestic security efforts since Sept. 11, 2001, and not to the consequences of the war in Iraq or President Bush's foreign policy, her advisers say. Yet rival Democratic campaigns, arguing that the war in Iraq has harmed security in America by breeding terrorists, are using the remark to highlight differences with her on the issue of the ability to be commander in chief, which political analysts view as a threshold issue for any woman running for president.

The campaign of her other chief rival, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, sent supporters and reporters a memorandum on Monday titled "America Is Not Safer Since 9/11," which cited research from the State Department and other groups that described terrorism as an accelerating threat. Advisers to other candidates, meanwhile, argued yesterday that Mrs. Clinton might be misjudging Democratic primary voters, who are loath to credit the Bush administration with much of anything.

Advisers and supporters of Mrs. Clinton said yesterday that she was not endorsing the Bush administration's strategy against terrorism, but highlighting the improved efforts of Americans on the front lines to detect and deter terrorist activity since 9/11. They said that Mrs. Clinton also thought the war in Iraq had been a distraction from the fight against terrorism, but that, day to day, people are safer than they were.

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