The incessant efforts of the Bush White House to connect Iraq and Al Queda have been suspect since the accusations first started flying. Now, however, the joint congressional inquiry into terrorist attacks of 9/11 will reveal, according to a UPI report, that the administration had “no evidence” of Iraq’s involvement with 9/11 and that there was no connection between Hussein and Al Queda.
You mean the Bush administration wasn’t telling us the truth about the need to invade Iraq? Why, that’s certainly never happened before!
Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo is alerting readers to the UPI story, which quotes former Sen. Max Cleland (D-Ga.), a committee member, extensively.
“The administration sold the connection (between Iraq and al-Qaida) to scare the pants off the American people and justify the war,” Cleland said. “What you’ve seen here is the manipulation of intelligence for political ends.”
In addition to misleading the public to try and convince us of the non-existent connection between Iraq and Al Queda, the Bush administration, Cleland argues, dragged its feet on cooperating with the 9/11 commission to delay public recognition of the report’s conclusion. As Cleland sees it, if the report had been released before the war, Bush would have lost one of his talking points.
“The reason this report was delayed for so long — deliberately opposed at first, then slow-walked after it was created — is that the administration wanted to get the war in Iraq in and over…before (it) came out,” Cleland said. “Had this report come out in January like it should have done, we would have known these things before the war in Iraq, which would not have suited the administration.”
After a while, I just have to shake my head when I see the enthusiasm with which Bush’s supporters will continue to defend the administration’s honesty and credibility.