Published on Thursday, June 24, 2004 by the San Diego Union-Tribune
Another Rationale for War is Gone
by James Goldsborough
First there were no weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq. Now, says the 9/11 commission, Iraq had no ties to the Sept. 11 attacks.
Its justifications for the Iraq War have slipped away like grunion in the moonlight, but President Bush is less interested in what history says than what voters say in 130 days.
He had to refute the commission's statement about an absence of links between Iraq and Sept. 11, 2001.
Trouble is, there is such a long paper trail.
One option was to ignore the commission. Up to our necks in Iraq now, who cares why we got in? Support the troops is the message today. History will have its say, but by then Bush will be back at the ranch.
A year ago, ignoring the commission might have worked, but with elections creeping up, Bush couldn't take the chance. He had to refute this irritating group which for 18 months has been assembling the record, including on any nations that might have abetted the Sept. 11 attackers.
Last week, the commission was definitive. It stated that its long inquiry had found no evidence that Iraq or Saddam Hussein had taken part "in any way in the attacks on the United States" of Sept. 11.
That's clear English, but the wording provided Bush with his defense:
He would parse the difference between al-Qaeda and Sept. 11. He would deny he had ever claimed links between Saddam Hussein and Sept. 11, asserting only that he claimed links between Saddam and al-Qaeda.
The defense stinks, but in politics it's not what stinks but what goes down. If Saddam is linked to al-Qaeda and al-Qaeda is linked to Sept. 11, it's likely Saddam is linked to Sept. 11 as well.
That's the linkage Bush sold to the nation for two years, and that he now denies.
Ah, but for that paper trail ...
Let's frame this another way: If Bush hadn't linked Saddam to Sept. 11, why did more than 50 percent of Americans believe such a link existed when war started last year, and why does nearly 40 percent still believe it?
No sooner had the commission made its statement last week, than the president and vice president tried to dismiss it: "There was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda," said Bush Thursday. "The evidence is overwhelming" of such a link, said Dick Cheney Friday.
This was a clear attempt to discredit the commission, which had created major trouble for Bush two months ago when former White House anti-terrorism chief Richard Clarke testified he had personally informed Bush that Iraq was not involved in Sept. 11.
Recall that two years ago Bush and Cheney opposed the commission, which Congress mandated under pressure from families of victims. Bush and Cheney then named as chairman Henry Kissinger, who was forced to step aside when the Senate Ethics Committee ruled all commission members must make financial disclosure statements, and Kissinger refused to comply.
In addition to claiming last week that "overwhelming" evidence existed of Saddam/al-Qaeda ties, Cheney suggested he had evidence of such ties the commission had not seen.
Both Bush and Cheney had refused to testify publicly before the commission, and Cheney's suggestion that he might have withheld something in his private testimony clearly startled commission chairman Thomas Kean.
If Cheney had such information, Kean said, "we need it – and we need it pretty fast." The commission's final report is due out at the end of July.
We need to understand the legerdemain the administration is using on us. Being deprived of the second of its war rationales – WMD being the first – it is squirming to show it never sought to tie Saddam to Sept. 11, and has no idea why a majority of Americans might have believed in such ties.
A review of the many administration statements on Saddam and al-Qaeda fails to show that it stated in so many words that Saddam was the mastermind behind Sept. 11.
But the connection always was implied. Saddam was linked to al-Qaeda terror, and therefore had to be linked to Sept. 11.
"Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of al-Qaeda." Bush in last year's State of the Union message.
"There have been links over the years and continue to be links between the Iraqi government and al-Qaeda." Colin Powell, Jan. 29, 2003.
There is "a potentially much more sinister nexus between Iraq and the al-Qaeda terrorist network, a nexus that combines classic terrorist organizations with modern methods of murder." Powell to the U.N. Security Council, Feb. 5, 2003.
"If we're successful in Iraq, we will have struck a major blow at the heart of the base of the terrorists who have had us under assault now for many years, but most especially on 9/11." Cheney, Sept. 14, 2003.
The administration did everything it could to conflate Iraq and Sept. 11, including in its treatment of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib. It sought to persuade Americans that Saddam was linked to Sept. 11, though it knew, as Clarke testified, he was not.
For the administration to contradict the commission today and assert it never linked Iraq to Sept. 11 is a lie.
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