The Phantom Al Qaeda
The Times takes President Bush to task today in a scathing editorial entitled the PLAIN TRUTH,
"Of all the ways Mr. Bush persuaded Americans to back the invasion of Iraq last year, the most plainly dishonest was his effort to link his war of choice with the battle against terrorists worldwide...they should have known all along that there was no link between Iraq and Al Qaeda. No serious intelligence analyst believed the connection existed; Richard Clarke, the former antiterrorism chief, wrote in his book that Mr. Bush had been told just that.
Nevertheless, the Bush administration convinced a substantial majority of Americans before the war that Saddam Hussein was somehow linked to 9/11. And since the invasion, administration officials, especially Vice President Dick Cheney, have continued to declare such a connection. Last September, Mr. Bush had to grudgingly correct Mr. Cheney for going too far in spinning a Hussein-bin Laden conspiracy. But the claim has crept back into view as the president has made the war on terror a centerpiece of his re-election campaign.
On Monday, Mr. Cheney said Mr. Hussein "had long-established ties with Al Qaeda." Mr. Bush later backed up Mr. Cheney, claiming that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a terrorist who may be operating in Baghdad, is "the best evidence" of a Qaeda link. This was particularly astonishing because the director of central intelligence, George Tenet, told the Senate earlier this year that Mr. Zarqawi did not work with the Hussein regime.
The staff report issued by the 9/11 panel says that Sudan's government, which sheltered Osama bin Laden in the early 1990's, tried to hook him up with Mr. Hussein, but that nothing came of it.
Mr. Bush is right when he says he cannot be blamed for everything that happened on or before Sept. 11, 2001. But he is responsible for the administration's actions since then. That includes, inexcusably, selling the false Iraq-Qaeda claim to Americans. There are two unpleasant alternatives: either Mr. Bush knew he was not telling the truth, or he has a capacity for politically motivated self-deception that is terrifying in the post-9/11 world."
posted by ian @ 3:30 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Mahoney - not sure which Times, you're reading, though I think only the New York version is arrogant enough to think they can actually be referred to as "the Times," so I'll just assume.
Anyway, this is what I read in my Times of the the Washington variety. It has quite a different depiction of the relationship between Saddam Huseein's regime and al Qaeda.
"The commission, which concludes its public hearings today, said two senior bin Laden associates "adamantly denied any ties existed between al Qaeda and Iraq" and there was "no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States."
"But the Bush administration has long contended that Iraq was connected to and supportive of the al Qaeda network, a position reiterated Monday by Vice President Dick Cheney, who said in a speech at the James Madison Institute in Orlando, Fla., that Saddam had "long-standing ties with al Qaeda."
"CIA Director George J. Tenet, who has worked in both the Bush and Clinton administrations, said in an October 2002 letter to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that senior level contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda had been ongoing for more than a decade, there was "solid evidence" of the presence of al Qaeda members in Iraq, and there was credible information that al Qaeda leaders sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire weapons of mass destruction.
"The letter was sent after Mr. Tenet modified a national intelligence estimate on Iraq to include the al Qaeda connection after a briefing from a special Pentagon unit that studied the Iraq-al Qaeda link.
"In 1998, the Clinton administration also tied Iraq to al Qaeda, saying Saddam had provided technical assistance in the construction of a chemical production plant in Sudan, undertaken with al Qaeda. In retaliation for al Qaeda's August 1998 truck bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, President Clinton ordered the destruction of that chemical plant."
The fact of the matter is, President Bush did not decide to go to war with Iraq because the country was tied to the 9/11 attacks. We went to War in Iraq because Saddam Hussein's regime was a dangerous threat to the United States, especially in a post-9/11 world.
That's it for me today. I'll let GE take on anything else...
-BB
Golly, I think it really just takes one of us to put a good conservative noogie on our host here.
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