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Abraham Shuns Position as Spokesman for Arab Americans [1]

['Edward Walsh', 'November']

Date: 2001-11-27

The headline on a Nov. 27 Federal page article incorrectly stated that Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham had shunned a role as a spokesman for Arab Americans. Abraham and others were quoted in the article as saying it was not necessary for him to play a visible role immediately after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, because President Bush had taken the lead. The same article incorrectly reported that an advertisement with pictures of then-Sen. Abraham and Osama bin Laden was published in 2000. It was published in 1999. (Published 11/28/01)

The secretary of energy's message of the day was of war and tolerance. He was in a fifth-grade classroom at Patrick Henry Elementary School in Arlington one recent morning, where the students were about to send e-mail messages filled with questions to another class of students at a school in Karachi, Pakistan.

Spencer Abraham talked about what has been happening since Sept. 11.

"It's a war against some bad people," he said, "but we're not at war against people whose religion is Muslim. We want to be friends of people of the Muslim religion."

The Patrick Henry students were not told this, but Abraham was an apt choice to deliver this message. He is not a Muslim, but he is an Arab American and he knows what it is like to be attacked because of his ethnic background.

In 2000, when Abraham was running for reelection to the Senate from Michigan, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which describes itself as an "immigration reform organization and watchdog group," launched an expensive advertising campaign against his candidacy. One newspaper ad featured a picture of Abraham next to a photo of another man of Middle Eastern appearance. It was Osama bin Laden, now believed to be the mastermind behind the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon.

The ad accused Abraham, then chairman of the Senate subcommittee on immigration, of "trying to make it easy for Osama bin Laden to export terrorism to the U.S."

In the days immediately following Sept. 11, there was a concern that Arab Americans would become the targets of an indiscriminate backlash by other Americans. President Bush moved aggressively to head off such a development, meeting with Islamic leaders in Washington and appealing for unity and tolerance. Abraham and the Cabinet's only other Arab American member, budget director Mitchell E. Daniels Jr., did not play a prominent role in that effort, and some wondered why.

"We have a lot of respect for Spencer," said James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute. "We would like to be seeing more of him."

But Abraham and others say it was not necessary for him to play a visible role in those first days because Bush did the job himself.

"I think the president could have used Spencer if he was going to use a surrogate, but the president did it himself," said Nasser Beydoun, executive director of the American Arab Chamber of Commerce in Dearborn, Mich. "I don't think the Arab American community can effectively defend itself better than the president of the United States can."

"I think the first phase was clearly one that the president needed to be the principal and central participant," said Abraham, the grandson of Lebanese immigrants who arrived in the United States about 100 years ago. "The president was pivotal in that period."

Abraham was en route to his office at the Department of Energy when he received a call in his car telling him of the attack on the World Trade Center.

"My reaction was the same I think as every other American's reaction -- anger and outrage," he said.

Abraham said his first act was to order a security "lock down" at his department's facilities. Trucks carrying nuclear material around the country were ordered to go to the nearest secure location, he said.

"I'm very confident that within our complex, the Department of Energy complex, that we are capable of dealing with security challenges," Abraham said of what has happened since Sept. 11.

The nation's nuclear power plants, which are privately owned, are under the jurisdiction of the independent Nuclear Regulatory Commission, not the Energy Department. But he said that other private firms that are in the energy-production and -transmission business have sought and are receiving advice from the Energy Department on security issues.

Among steps that are being explored, Abraham said, are ways to ease antitrust restrictions so that energy-related companies could more easily share information about security.

Abraham said he has not lost sight of the concerns of the Arab American community. One of those is how the tough new anti-terrorism laws that Bush pushed for and Congress quickly enacted will be used.

In the Senate, Abraham was a strong advocate for immigrants, said Ismael Ahmed, executive director of the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services in Dearborn.

"We're seeing some things nobody is happy with -- expansion of secret evidence, erosion of immigrant rights, expanded detention of immigrants," Ahmed said. "We assume there is a debate going on between security and freedom. But we've seen no evidence that [former] Senator Abraham is in any other place than he was before."

Abraham said his job as a Cabinet officer "is a little different than my job in the Senate. One has to decide his responsibilities, one has to work within an administration. I've got a lot of hats to wear, but I'll do my best to try to help people in the community get their concerns addressed."

Arab Americans, Abraham added, are no different than others as they contemplate the possibility of more terrorist attacks.

"They ride on the same airplanes, they go to the same office buildings, and they receive mail," he said. "There's no distinction when random assaults of terrorists take place. I think the people in the communities that I've talked to want to be protected as everybody else wants to be."

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, right, watches as Arlington fifth-graders send e-mail to students at Pakistani school. From left: Caleb Dyson, Madelyn Davis, assistant principal Erin Wales and teacher Patricia Hammond.

[END]
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[1] Url: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2001/11/27/abraham-shuns-position-as-spokesman-for-arab-americans/63a37fea-e273-4631-a549-9d59d58070e6/

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