The horror of Sept. 11th, 2001

I'm not saying everything in Media is lies. I trust the racing results and stock prices.

Bush Now Says What He Wouldn’t Say Before War: Iraq Had ‘Nothing’ To Do With 9/11
By Faiz Shakir on Aug 21, 2006 at 12:02 pm
President Bush was in the midst of explaining how the attacks of 9/11 inspired his “freedom agenda” and the attacks on Iraq until a reporter, Ken Herman of Cox News, interrupted to ask what Iraq had to do with 9/11. “Nothing,” Bush defiantly answered. Watch it.
[flv http://video.thinkprogress.org/2006/08/bush911.320.240.flv]
To justify the war, Bush informed Congress on March 19, 2003 that acting against Iraq was consistent with “continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.”


As ThinkProgress has repeatedly documented, Vice President Cheney cited “evidence” cooked up by Douglas Feith and others to claim it was “pretty well confirmed” that Iraq had contacts with 9/11 hijackers.

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2005/06/13/1081/cheney-cited-evidence-that-was-known-to-be-false/

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2005/12/01/2715/lynne-cheney-unhinged/

More generally, in the lead-up to the war in Iraq, the administration encouraged the false impression that Saddam had a role in 9/11.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/28/us/how-pair-s-finding-on-terror-led-to-clash-on-shaping-intelligence.html

Quote:

The impact of Bush linking 9/11 and Iraq
American attitudes about a connection have changed, firming up the case for war.

By Linda Feldmann, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor / March 14, 2003

WASHINGTON
In his prime-time press conference last week, which focused almost solely on Iraq, President Bush mentioned Sept. 11 eight times. He referred to Saddam Hussein many more times than that, often in the same breath with Sept. 11.

Bush never pinned blame for the attacks directly on the Iraqi president. Still, the overall effect was to reinforce an impression that persists among much of the American public: that the Iraqi dictator did play a direct role in the attacks. A New York Times/CBS poll this week shows that 45 percent of Americans believe Mr. Hussein was "personally involved" in Sept. 11, about the same figure as a month ago.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0314/p02s01-woiq.html

Bush never stated then, as he does now, that Iraq had “nothing” to do with 9/11. Only after the Iraq war began did Bush candidly acknowledge that Iraq was not operationally linked to 9/11.

Digg It!

Full transcript:
BUSH: The terrorists attacked us and killed 3,000 of our citizens before we started the freedom agenda in the Middle East.
QUESTION: What did Iraq have to do with it?
BUSH: What did Iraq have to do with what?
QUESTION: The attack on the World Trade Center.
BUSH: Nothing. Except it’s part of — and nobody has suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack. Iraq was a — Iraq — the lesson of September 11th is take threats before they fully materialize, Ken. Nobody’s ever suggested that the attacks of September the 11th were ordered by Iraq.

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2006/08/21/7016/bush-on-911/

But I do disagree with JTT's description as the vast majority of Americans as being as 'impressionable as fifth graders'.

Poll: 70% believe Saddam, 9-11 link

WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly seven in 10 Americans believe it is likely that ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the Sept. 11 attacks, says a poll out almost two years after the terrorists' strike against this country.
Sixty-nine percent in a Washington Post poll published Saturday said they believe it is likely the Iraqi leader was personally involved in the attacks carried out by al-Qaeda. A majority of Democrats, Republicans and independents believe it's likely Saddam was involved.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-09-06-poll-iraq_x.htm

our troops were, as a result, equipped with (often burdensome) defense & countermeasure equipment.

Technically you are right - but he created the axis of evil,

Coined the phrase would be a better way of putting it.

suggested it could aid terrorists

All three nations have aided terrorists. I doubt there is evidence that they worked in concert to aid terrorism directed at the US, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was. These bad actors will cooperate when it suits them.

and in launching the war on Iraq called americans to remember the 9/11 attacks (transcript) (after also manufacturing the WMD stuff and flouting the UN)

What you are addressing in this speech boils down to a matter of interpretation upon which we both can offer an opinion but which neither of us can prove. I think it understandable and not deceptive that 9/11 be invoked in this speech. Obviously you disagree.

As to "manufacturing the WMD stuff," there we will very strongly disagree.

Regarding flouting the UN, I don't share the belief that the UN is of sufficent authority to actually be flouted, but the efforts made by the US and its allies in the United Nations can hardly be considered flouting.

In any case agruments about what was or wasn't said about WMDs or how the game played out in the UN don't inform us that Bush tried to convince the American people that Saddam was a co-conspirator in 9/11/


Even though there was obvious speculation about Iraq's role in 9/11 in the media and in the public Bush NEVER clarified before the invasion that he was NOT saying that Iraq was involved in 9/11 precisely because there was an intention to invade Iraq before the events of 9/11 - and that was a damn good way of selling it to the american people in the administration's eyes. That's not leadership, that's deception.

It is true that Bush did not ever go before the American people and declare

"I just want to make sure y'all know, before we actually launch an attack on Saddam, that there is no evidence that proves Iraq assisted al-Qaida in planning or executing the attacks of 9/11, AND I have no substantive reason to believe it did, but simply haven't discovered the necessary evidence to prove it. We are not going to war with Iraq because Saddam or his forces were involved in the 9/11 attacks."

In retrospect I wish he had because I don't believe it would have changed the course of history one whit, and it would deprive his critics of an argument that cannot be proven or disproven, but which will not go away.

When the war in Iraq was launched the sizeable number of Americans who supported it were not thinking "Finally, revenge for 9/11!"

To the degree that the war on Iraq was cast as part of the broader war on Terror drawing connections to 9/11 was unavoidable and not inappropriate. According to the Administration the threat of Saddam using WMDs against the US was the primary reason for the invasion. That being the case it would have been impossible, at that time, not to conjure the hellish memories of the tragedy regardless of whether that was what Bush wanted and intended.

I will take it a further step. I have always been critical of the Administration for focusing too much on the threat of WMDs as justification for the war., and not because I knew or suspected that no WMDs would be found. In retrospect my call for a more thorough explanation for going to war , if heeded, would have mitigated the political damage caused by not finding WMDs, but like the majority of my fellow Americans (and probably quite a lot of people throughout the world), I fully expected WMDs to be found, and in fairly short order.

The Administration focused on WMDs because they wanted to keep it simple for the American people and the threat of nukes going off in Chicago and the harbor in Baltimore was pretty simple. They underestimated Americans and it was insulting that they did. In the end their insulting condescension bit them in their collective ass. A major reason for invading Iraq was to establish a democratic beachhead in a region that had been a hot zone for America for many years and was only getting hotter. That Saddam was a truly nasty piece of work who the other Muslims in the region hated and feared and who had proven he was not only desirous of collecting WMDs but willing to use them made him the obvious fall guy. If someone had to go down so that democracy could get a foothold in the region, he was the perfect target.

I'm not a lone wolf in the wilderness howling about other stated or implied reasons for invading Iraq. White House spokespersons and Bush surrogates were all over TV during the lead up to the invasion talking about

1) The threat of Iraqi WMDs
2) The personal evil monstrosity of Saddam and his threat to the region and his own people
3) The strategy of establishing a democratic beach head in the Muslim Middle East

Your argument that the Administration knew all along that Saddam didn't have any WMDs and that none would be found post-invasion doesn't reconcile with putting all the eggs in one WMD basket to justify the war.

As for there being a plan to invade Iraq before 9/11 even occurred, you're going to need a lot more that your say so to prove that. I've lost track of who is and isn't a Truther on A2K, but are you about to argue that 9/11 occurred as part of the plan to invade Iraq? What was the reason for a pre-9/11 plan to invade Iraq? Oil for Texas billionaires or revenge for the plot to assassinate Poppy?

One last point about the WMDs which I have never seen even remotely addressed with adequacy is this puzzle: If the Administration was so mendacious as to manufacture and manipulate the truth in order to start a war, and so skilled in this regard as to have 3/4 of the world's intelligence agencies believing the WMDs existed and 3/4 of the Democrats in congress agreeing that Saddam was a threat who had to be stopped, why weren't WMDs found during a period of time when the US military and intelligence agencies could have arranged anything in the Iraqi deserts or Saddam palaces? Do you mean to suggest that having deliberately deceived the American people and all of our allies in order to facilitate a war in which American and allied soldiers were being killed (not to mention Iraqi civilians), that Bush & Co would have stopped short of planting WMDs that could be found and thereby put an end to the boiling contraversy?

Surely they weren't tripped up by a sudden attack of honor and honesty. Did their diabolically clever mastermind pills run out?

Thanks Tico - but I'm thinking Finn would say that Bush didn't say it, Congress did.

Whereas members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq;

Whereas Iraq continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations, including organizations that threaten the lives and safety of American citizens;

hingehead wrote:

Thanks Tico - but I'm thinking Finn would say that Bush didn't say it, Congress did.

I think you may have misunderstood Tico's posting. That, or I have.

Tico, citing to the AUMF wrote:

Whereas members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq;

Whereas Iraq continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations, including organizations that threaten the lives and safety of American citizens;

True, Congress and not Bush "said" this, but this does not say what you seem to think it does. It's not a statement that Saddam and Iraq were behind or participated in the planning or execution of the 9/11 attacks.

The first resolution blames al Qaida, not Iraq, for 9/11. It's making a case for going into Iraq where it was thought some al-Qaida members were hiding. (As it turned out, they were).

The second resolution merely makes the case that Iraq is a threat to the US for aiding and harboring terrorist other tha al-Qaida.

If I'm wrong about Tico's inent, I'd appreciate it if he would address this.

Saddam could have prevented the invasion. He was given a choice and he choose to do nothing.

<<<Pssst, JTT. Look at all the red meat I've thrown you. Go to town!>>>

If the Americans were using FAEs and Daisy Cutters in the ordinary prosecution of the war, what might they unleash if Iraq inflicted massive Coalition casualties through attacks with chemical or biological weapons?