Show Us the Proof
Published: June 19, 2004
When the commission studying the 9/11 terrorist attacks refuted the
Bush administration's claims of a connection between Saddam Hussein
and Osama bin Laden, we suggested that President Bush apologize for
using these claims to help win Americans' support for the invasion of
Iraq. We did not really expect that to happen. But we were surprised
by the depth and ferocity of the administration's capacity for denial.
President Bush and Vice President ***** Cheney have not only brushed
aside the panel's findings and questioned its expertise, but they are
also trying to rewrite history.
Mr. Bush said the 9/11 panel had actually confirmed his contention
that there were "ties" between Iraq and Al Qaeda. He said his
administration had never connected Saddam Hussein to 9/11. Both
statements are wrong.
Before the war, Mr. Bush spoke of far more than vague "ties" between
Iraq and Al Qaeda. He said Iraq had provided Al Qaeda with weapons
training, bomb-making expertise and a base in Iraq. On Feb. 8, 2003,
Mr. Bush said that "an Al Qaeda operative was sent to Iraq several
times in the late 1990's for help in acquiring poisons and gases." The
9/11 panel's report, as well as news articles, indicate that these
things never happened.
Mr. Cheney said yesterday that the "evidence is overwhelming" of an
Iraq-Qaeda axis and that there had been a "whole series of high-level
contacts" between them. The 9/11 panel said a senior Iraqi
intelligence officer made three visits to Sudan in the early 1990's,
meeting with Osama bin Laden once in 1994. It said Osama bin Laden had
asked for "space to establish training camps, as well as assistance in
procuring weapons, but Iraq apparently never responded." The panel
cited reports of further contacts after Osama bin Laden returned to
Afghanistan in 1996, but said there was no working relationship. As
far as the public record is concerned, then, Mr. Cheney's
"longstanding ties" amount to one confirmed meeting, after which the
Iraq government did not help Al Qaeda. By those standards, the United
States has longstanding ties to North Korea.
Mr. Bush has also used a terrorist named Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as
evidence of a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda. Mr. Bush used to refer
to Mr. Zarqawi as a "senior Al Qaeda terrorist planner" who was in
Baghdad working with the Iraqi government. But the director of central
intelligence, George Tenet, told the Senate earlier this year that Mr.
Zarqawi did not work with the Hussein regime, nor under the direction
of Al Qaeda.
When it comes to 9/11, someone in the Bush administration has indeed
drawn the connection to Iraq: the vice president. Mr. Cheney has
repeatedly referred to reports that Mohamed Atta met in Prague in
April 2001 with an Iraqi intelligence agent. He told Tim Russert of
NBC on Dec. 9, 2001, that this report has "been pretty well
confirmed." If so, no one seems to have informed the C.I.A., the Czech
government or the 9/11 commission, which said it did not appear to be
true. Yet Mr. Cheney cited it, again, on Thursday night on CNBC.
Mr. Cheney said he had lots of documents to prove his claims. We have
heard that before, but Mr. Cheney always seems too pressed for time or
too concerned about secrets to share them. Last September, Mr.
Cheney's adviser, Mary Matalin, explained to The Washington Post that
Mr. Cheney had access to lots of secret stuff. She said he had to
"tiptoe through the land mines of what's sayable and not sayable" to
the public, but that "his job is to connect the dots."
The message, if we hear it properly, is that when it comes to this
critical issue, the vice president is not prepared to offer any
evidence beyond the flimsy-to-nonexistent arguments he has used in the
past, but he wants us to trust him when he says there's more behind
the screen. So far, when it comes to Iraq, blind faith in this
administration has been a losing strategy.
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