Did Saddam have any connection to 9/11?

We did not create the Taliban or Hussein regimes. We supported them when if fit our goals during the cold war, but we hardly created them.

I assume both you and Dookie responded "yes" to the question above then?

McGentrix wrote:

We did not create the Taliban or Hussein regimes. We supported them when if fit our goals during the cold war, but we hardly created them.

I assume both you and Dookie responded "yes" to the question above then?

If then you believe Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11 in that he supported the Taliban and their mission, if indirectly, and you state with authority that we supported the Taliban and Saddam Hussein at some point then it follows you must agree that we share in the responsibility of the 9/11 attacks on our own country and citizens.

An excellent point, although I'm not as sure about the Taliban. But then again, Bush gave them $43 million to fight the Poppy trade (presumably). Imagine that?

Powell emphasized that the aid is distributed through the UN and non-government organizations, and not to the Taliban or other warring Afghan factions. "It bypasses the Taliban, who have done little to alleviate the suffering of the Afghan people and much to exacerbate it," he said.

A senior delegation from the Taliban movement in Afghanistan was in the United States for talks with an international energy company that wanted to construct a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan across Afghanistan to Pakistan. A spokesman for the company, Unocal, said the Taliban were expected to spend several days at the company's headquarters in Sugarland, Texas.

The Taliban ministers and their advisers stayed in a five-star hotel and were chauffeured in a company minibus. Their only requests were to visit Houston's zoo, the NASA space centre and Omaha's Super Target discount store to buy stockings, toothpaste, combs and soap. The Taliban, which controls two-thirds of Afghanistan and is still fighting for the last third, was also given an insight into how the other half lives. The men, who are accustomed to life without heating, electricity or running water, were amazed by the luxurious homes of Texan oil barons. Invited to dinner at the palatial home of Martin Miller, a vice-president of Unocal, they marvelled at his swimming pool, views of the golf course and six bathrooms. After a meal of specially prepared halal meat, rice and Coca-Cola, the hardline fundamentalists - who have banned women from working and girls from going to school - asked Mr. Miller about his Christmas tree.

-- Caroline Lees, "Oil Barons Court Taliban in Texas," The Telegraph (London), December 14, 1997.

Whether it went directly from us or via the U.N., it gave the Taliban a false impression of vindication for their acts, despite the backwardness and despicable acts they committed on their own people.

No, I'm questioning EXACTLY how it was done in the first place.

Do YOU know?

Bush gave them [the Taliban] $43 million to fight the Poppy trade

Bush Disavows Hussein-Sept. 11 Link
Administration Has Been Vague on Issue, but President Says No Evidence Found

By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 18, 2003; Page A18

President Bush said there has been no evidence that Iraq's Saddam Hussein was involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, disavowing a link that had been hinted at previously by his administration.

"No, we've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with September the 11th," the president said yesterday after a meeting at the White House with lawmakers.

In stating that position, Bush clarified an issue that has long been left vague by his administration. On Sunday, Vice President Cheney said on NBC's "Meet the Press" that success in Iraq means "we will have struck a major blow right at the heart of the base, if you will, the geographic base of the terrorists who had us under assault now for many years, but most especially on 9/11."

A Washington Post poll last month found that 69 percent of Americans thought it at least likely that Hussein had a role in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Polling experts said Americans held that view mostly because of an instinctive suspicion of Hussein, but Democrats and some public opinion experts said Bush and his aides exploited that impression by implying a link.

In his May 1 speech announcing the end of major combat in Iraq, Bush said, "The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11th, 2001." He added: "With those attacks, the terrorists and their supporters declared war on the United States. And war is what they got."

Bush, while seeing no link between Hussein and the attacks, said yesterday that Iraq was linked to Osama bin Laden's terror organization. "There's no question that Saddam Hussein had al Qaeda ties," he said. Some terrorism experts dispute the extent of those ties, but the ties are not disputed as vigorously as the link between Hussein and the Sept. 11 attacks.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Wednesday said he had no reason to believe that Hussein had a hand in the Sept. 11 attacks.

On Sunday, Cheney revived the possibility that Sept. 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence officer five months before the attacks, saying, "We just don't know" whether the allegation is true. But an FBI investigation concluded that Atta was apparently in Florida at the time of the alleged meeting, and the CIA has always doubted it took place.

Cheney, speaking to a meeting of the Air Force Association here yesterday, delivered an impassioned defense of the Bush administration's actions in Iraq, and especially of its strategy of acting preemptively against perceived threats.

"Some people, both in this nation and abroad, have questions about that strategy," Cheney said. "Make no mistake: President Bush is acting to protect the American people against further attacks, even when that means moving aggressively against would-be attackers."

Some analysts have concluded that the fact that no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq since the March invasion has made future preventive actions unlikely.

In a talk to congressional staff members earlier this week, Andrew Krepinevich Jr., the director of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said the discovery that "there was no imminent danger" from Iraq made it unlikely that Americans would again support such a preventive action.

Quote:

And besides....his statements come with an expiration date ya know....
:wink:

gee coluber1, did you not note the date on that article? That was 13 whole months ago!!!!!

You don't expect anyone to remember something bush said that along ago do you?

And besides....his statements come with an expiration date ya know....