Rapid Response
By CARL HULSE
NYT
The Bush campaign is moving very quickly and aggressively to counter the finding by the commission investigating the attacks of Sept.11, 2001, that there was no "collaborative relationship" between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, in order to limit any political damage.
After Vice President Dick Cheney's biting rebuttal on Thursday of news accounts emphasizing the lack of a link, the Bush campaign today distributed memos and commentary in an effort to buttress the administration's claim that there were contacts between Iraq's government and the terrorist group, though they may not have worked together on the Sept. 11 attacks.
One campaign briefing paper said that the 9/11 report actually supports the administration's "longstanding conclusion" that there was no evidence that Iraq and Al Qaeda cooperated on the 9/11 strikes.
"The administration has said, however, that it was worried about a number of contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda, including contacts between senior Iraqi intelligence officers and senior members of Al Qaeda," the campaign paper said.
The rapid response by the campaign, in concert with the White House, illustrates the political threat Bush advisers see if the conclusion of the 9/11 commission is allowed to go unchallenged.
The terror connection was never tied to Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction, which was the administration's justification for the war. But with no weapons discovered, and public support for the conflict slipping, the Bush campaign cannot afford to let another of its main rationales for the invasion become widely suspect.
Democrats are already seizing on the 9/11 commission report as further evidence of how the administration misled the public.
The question for President Bush now is whether indications of possible contacts between Osama bin Laden and Iraqi intelligence officers, some back in the mid-1990's, will be seen by the public as substantial enough to justify the emphasis the administration put on the Iraq-Al Qaeda link. |
