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Mayflower
Registered Member
Date Joined Mar 2002
Total Posts : 445
| Posted 9/18/2003 5:09 AM (GMT -6) |   |
St. Paul (Minnesota) PIONEER PRESS
Published Thursday, September 18, 2003
BUSH ADMITS 'NO EVIDENCE' LINKS SADDAM HUSSEIN TO 9/11 ATTACKS
By Greg Miller -- Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON — President Bush said Wednesday there is no proof tying Saddam Hussein to the Sept. 11 attacks, amid rising criticism that statements by administration officials have helped lead Americans to believe that Iraq was behind the plot.
Bush's comment was the latest in a flurry of remarks this week by administration officials after Vice President Dick Cheney resurrected several contentious claims about Iraq's ties to al-Qaida in an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday.
"We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the Sept. 11th," Bush said, but quickly added: "There's no question that Saddam Hussein had al-Qaida ties."
His comments were his most direct on the issue to date, drawing a clear distinction between alleged Iraqi ties to al-Qaida and a lack of evidence of Iraqi involvement in Sept. 11. That is a distinction administration officials did not emphasize in the months before the war. The issue has come to a head amid recent polls showing most Americans believe — despite a lack of evidence — that Saddam was complicit in the attacks.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan stressed Wednesday that administration officials never claimed any Iraq-Sept. 11 links.
McClellan's assertion appears to be factually correct, but many administration critics believe it is also somewhat misleading.
While senior administration officials stopped short of accusing Saddam of complicity in the attacks, they frequently alluded to the possibility of such a link, and consistently cast the relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida in stronger terms than many in the intelligence community seemed to endorse.
Even Bush's remarks Wednesday were challenged by lawmakers and other officials who have reviewed the record of prewar claims by the White House and have access to the underlying U.S. intelligence.
Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said any alleged ties between Saddam and al-Qaida "are tenuous at best and not compelling."
And while he agreed that administration officials never made an explicit connection between Iraq and Sept. 11, Rockefeller said the White House "led the American public into believing there was a connection in order to build support for the war in Iraq."
The issue has been revived in recent days by a number of factors, including a fresh effort by the White House to shore up support for the increasingly costly military and reconstruction efforts in Iraq by casting the operation as a part of the response to Sept. 11.
Last week, Bush described Iraq as the "central front" in the war on terrorism, even though few in the counterterrorism community described it as such before the war in Iraq.
Then in his appearance Sunday on "Meet the Press," Cheney defended every aspect of the war in Iraq, saying prewar claims about banned weapons held by Iraq would be vindicated, and argued that Iraq was the "heart of the base" of the terrorist threat that culminated on Sept. 11.
The White House has been on the defensive for months over the failure to find banned weapons in Iraq, which has fueled criticism that the administration hyped the Iraq threat.
Perhaps fearing that Cheney's comments might trigger new public relations problems, the White House moved quickly to clarify its position on Iraq and Sept. 11.
Bush's remarks Wednesday followed similar comments Tuesday by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that the administration had no evidence tying Saddam to Sept. 11. National security adviser Condoleezza Rice also spoke on the issue Tuesday, saying on ABC's Nightline, "We have never claimed that Saddam Hussein … had either direction or control of 9/11."
Recent administration statements, however, have prompted new questions about whether the administration contributed to, and capitalized on, public perceptions that Iraq was involved in the attacks.
Polls over the past year have shown a majority of Americans believe Saddam was somehow complicit. The latest, an August survey by the Washington Post, found that 69 percent of Americans believe Iraq was "likely" behind the attacks.
Although Bush and his aides were careful not to say directly that Saddam took part in the Sept. 11 attacks, they often conflated the two subjects before the war.
Last October, Bush said, "We know that Iraq and the al-Qaida terrorist network share a common enemy — the United States of America. We know that Iraq and al-Qaida have had high-level contacts that go back a decade."
He reinforced the link in his May 1 speech aboard an aircraft carrier off San Diego, saying, "We've removed an ally of al-Qaida."
Critics argue that such juxtapositions encouraged people to tie Saddam to Sept. 11.
"It was the close association in the same thought, the same sentence, that led to that incorrect conclusion," said Greg Thielmann a former senior intelligence official at the State Department who retired last year. "And I think it was done with great skill and deliberation."
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DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 9/18/2003 5:24 AM (GMT -6) | | I remember getting an email from my grandmother that was anti-anti-war protestors, claiming we had the right to avenge our losses from 9-11 in GWII. I wrote back a scathing response pointing out that it was a lie to say or imply that SHussein had anything to do with 9-11, but that there were other good reasons for forcing a regime change on Iraq.
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