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Politics : The Donkey's Inn -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Patricia Trinchero who wrote (5040)	10/25/2002 2:23:14 PM
From: TigerPaw	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 15516

Sen. Wellstone, seven others dead in plane crash usatoday.com

To: Patricia Trinchero who wrote (5040)	10/28/2002 6:33:32 AM
From: Mephisto	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 15516

Bush offers disinformation about Saddam Cynthia Tucker accessatlanta.com Do you believe that Saddam Hussein had a hand in the terrorist atrocities of Sept. 11? If you do, you have a lot of company: About two-thirds of Americans, according to a recent Pew Research poll, believe Saddam is linked to the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. That's not surprising. The Bush administration has worked very hard over the last several months to convince Americans that Saddam is linked to the assault that killed more than 3,000 people last year. They've succeeded despite what ought to be a very difficult obstacle: There's absolutely no proof that it's true. Though the Bush administration has looked for even the slenderest threads of such evidence, it has found little to suggest Saddam was any less surprised by al-Qaida's attack than the rest of us. The White House knows the facts. They just hope that you don't. Last month, when Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld granted an interview to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's editorial board, I asked him about efforts to tie Saddam to Sept. 11. Rumsfeld quickly denied such an effort. "I don't know of anyone in the administration who has uttered the words Sept. 11th and Iraq," he said. "Do you know anyone?" Actually, yes -- Rumsfeld and President Bush. OK, they have never actually said Saddam was behind the Sept. 11 attacks. But they suggest just such a connection at every opportunity. Testifying before Congress in September, Rumsfeld responded to skeptics who wondered what provoked an urgent need to attack Iraq. "Some ask what has changed to warrant action now. Well, what has changed is our experience on Sept. 11," he said. Indeed, Rumsfeld referred repeatedly to Sept. 11 during his testimony, stating, at one point, "Do we believe it is our responsibility to wait for a weapon of mass destruction 9/11, or is it the responsibility of free people to do something, to take steps to deal with such a threat before such an attack occurs?" And, of course, Bush does the same. In a recent speech denouncing Iraq, Bush not only used Sept. 11 as a chorus, but he also attempted to link Saddam to al-Qaida. Many intelligence analysts, however, say the president's allegations are suspect, based on unconfirmed or erroneous reports. As just one example, senior CIA analysts have now all but dismissed an earlier report that Mohamed Atta, one of the leaders of the Sept. 11 attacks, met with an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague last year. Even Kenneth Pollack, a former National Security Council official who firmly supports invading Iraq, doubts that Saddam has taken up with Osama bin Laden. "It would be the dumbest thing in the world for Saddam to be supporting anti-U.S. terrorism right now, and most of what we've seen from him suggests that he recognizes this," Pollack said. But you'd never know that listening to the White House. Has the president actually said that Saddam was behind last year's terrorist plot? No, he hasn't. But he has certainly implied it. This ploy to tie Saddam to Sept. 11, then, is not exactly the Big Lie; it's more like the Big Deception. The Bush administration is so dedicated to perpetrating this deception that Rumsfeld is willing to pervert intelligence gathering. According to a New York Times report, Rumsfeld has ordered a small intelligence unit of the Pentagon to dedicate itself to finding links between Saddam and bin Laden's terrorist group. That represents a politicizing of intelligence gathering that may blind the United States to genuine threats. The escalation of the war in Vietnam, you'll remember, also depended on deception. President Johnson told Congress that the Viet Cong had attacked two U.S. destroyers, which led Congress to pass the Gulf of Tonkin resolution giving Johnson a freer hand to wage war. Many historians now doubt that attack ever occurred. Have we learned nothing from that history? accessatlanta.com Cynthia Tucker is the editorial page editor. Her column appears Wednesdays and Sundays.