Six years later, where are those to blame now? - Countdown with Keith Olbermann - MSNBC.com
Six years later, where are those to blame now?
Iraq and 9/11 stand connected and we are suffering the consequences
COMMENTARY by Keith Olbermann
MSNBC
To this day, millions of Americans believe we invaded Iraq because of 9/11. Thirty-three percent still believe there was some interconnection between Saddam Hussein and the nightmares here and in Washington and in Pennsylvania. Iraq, of course, had nothing to do with 9/11. Six years later, that has changed.
Iraq has distracted us from punishing those responsible for 9/11. If another 9/11 comes, our focus on Iraq will surely have been central to that nightmare. How did we get here? What consequences have been paid by those who brought us here? No one person is to blame. And only some of those who are recognize it.
Colin Powell
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell told GQ magazine he is "sorry" he gave the world wrong information when he told the U.N. of the threat Iraq supposedly posed. He was not fired for doing so. He paid no price we know of, other than the admitted "blot" on his record, and whatever toll his conscience exacted.
Donald Rumsfeld
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld also talked to GQ, saying he does not lose sleep over the war declining to apologize for it despite pushing for it, despite using 9/11, the day after 9/11, for his own benefit, to pursue his goal of bombing Iraq. Rumsfeld was not fired for his performance, but for politics. Now in his private life he is reportedly trying to see how much he must tell, to make for a profitable tell-all.
Rumsfeld was served, and the nation ill-served, by a flock of Pentagon hawks, bent on war seeing 9/11 not as an obligation to answer. but an opportunity to exploit.
Richard Perle
Defense Policy Board Chairman Richard Perle was not fired. Instead, he was forced to retire not for pushing the war but for allegedly profiting off it.
Doug Feith
Undersecretary Doug Feith who cherry-picked anti-Iraq intel was not fired despite a Pentagonreport later refuting Feith's claim that Iraq and al Qaeda were in league.
Stephen Hadley
Deputy National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley was reponsible for the 16-word lie about Iraqi yellowcake. He was not fired but promoted to National Security Advisor.
Condoleezza Rice
Condoleezza Rice, who threatened us with mushroom clouds was not fired but promoted to America's chief diplomat, Secretary of State.
George Tenet
CIA Director George Tenet, who called the case for war a "slam dunk" was not fired but given the presidential Medal of Freedom.
The president's advisors
Within the president's circle of advisors, marketing the war, Andy Card and Dan Bartlett were never fired. Card retired and Bartlett was promoted, then he retired.
Karen Hughes
Karen Hughes was not fired but promoted and stunningly to the task of winning hearts and minds in the Muslim world.
Vice President Cheney
Vice President Dick Cheney, creator of his cherry-picking intel apparatus gave its poisoned fruit to the media and then fed the lie to us on national television even after truth, and shame, rendered its mendaciousness manifest. He continues to do so to this day, not fired.
Lewis Libby
Cheney's aide, Lewis Libby, came closest of all to suffering genuine consequences and was convicted of covering up Cheney's role in sliming critics of the war. His consequences were nullified at the last minute.
When the president commuted his prison sentence ensuring that no one in his circle, least of all him, paid any price for selling us the lie of Iraq; for failing to punish the bombing of the USS Cole; for neglecting the warnings pre-9/11; for turning back at Tora Bora; for ultimately ensuring that while the rest of the world suffers painful, deadly consequences for his actions, only he does not.
Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of 9/11 -- his reach, and recruiting are all benefiting from Bush's war and his group's strength today at a six-year high. His Afghan allies the Taliban and as NBC reported tonight are also resurgent, planning the death of Americans, just 25 miles from Kabul.
All while bin Laden himself operates freely, unmolested, with his own media operation... thanks to a regional Pakistani truce endorsed by Bush in a region where Bush will not go, can not go even if he chose to.
Because he has spent so much American blood and treasure, in the desert of a nation that had neither means nor motive to threaten us but that tempted Bush and those around him who wished to transform the Middle East so much so that he forswore the vow he made, standing on New York's dead that their killers would hear us soon.
Six years later, we still hear them, because now, finally, Iraq and 9/11 really are connected by him. And we suffer the consequences.
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