Kerry: 9/11 Report Casts Doubt on Iraq War

[DROliver]

This guy will do whatever to gain power!

Again how does the 9-11 report have anything to do with the war on Iraq?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/s ... 21,00.html

Friday June 18, 2004 12:01 AM


By NEDRA PICKLER

Associated Press Writer

DETROIT (AP) - Democratic presidential challenger John Kerry said Thursday that the Sept. 11 commission's report clearly shows President Bush ``rushed to war for a purpose that it now turns out is not supported by the facts.''

Bush continued to insist Thursday that there was a link between Iraq and al-Qaida, despite the independent commission's finding that there is no evidence to support a collaborative relationship. Bush said no one in his administration has said the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, were orchestrated between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida.

Kerry seized upon the commission's findings as further evidence that the White House misled the public about its reasons for invading Iraq. He said Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney ``on a number of occasions have asserted very directly to the American people that the war against al-Qaida is the war in Iraq. And on any number of occasions the president has made it clear that the front of the war against al-Qaida is in Iraq.''

``This administration took its eye off of al-Qaida, took its eye off of the real war on terror in Afghanistan and northwest Pakistan and transferred it for reasons of its own to Iraq,'' Kerry said. ``And the American people are paying billions of dollars now because of that decision. And most importantly, American families and American soldiers are paying the highest price of all.''

Asked what Bush's true motivation was for attacking Saddam's government, Kerry said that is a question for the administration.

``It is clear that the president owes the American people a fundamental explanation about why he rushed to war for a purpose that it now turns out is not supported by the facts,'' Kerry said. ``And that is the finding of this commission.''

Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt called the comments ``another example of John Kerry trying to exploit the war on terror for political gain and to contradict his previous statements.''

The Bush campaign said the Massachusetts senator's comments contradict the position he took in October 2002 as he prepared to vote for the Iraq war resolution in the Senate. Kerry said on the Senate floor that Saddam had supported and harbored terrorists, and specifically mentioned Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal and suicide murderers in Israel.

Kerry did not mention any ties to al-Qaida during that speech, in which he also said the United States should be prepared for war because of Saddam's dangerous potential.

In Detroit, Kerry stopped by Fishbone's restaurant in the city's Greektown neighborhood, where Mark Ivezaj told him the commission's findings could take him to victory on Nov. 2.

``Kerry, you got him,'' Ivezaj said as the candidate greeted diners. ``He lied about Iraq.''

Kerry also said Thursday that, as an American citizen and a senator, he felt misled by the Bush administration on the justification for war in Iraq.

``I'm a citizen of the nation and a senator and in both respects, I believe that we were misled about this administration's intentions about how it would go about this, building an international coalition, respecting the United Nations process and now it seems the fundamentals of the rationale,'' he said.

^---

On the Net:

Kerry campaign: http://www.johnkerry.com

Bush-Cheney: htpp://www.georgewbush.com


Peace

Steve O.

[DROliver]

This is from Neal Boortz:

http://boortz.com/nuze/index.html

Yesterday was not a good day for the national press corps. I can think of few occasions where the bias was more obvious and pronounced. The story, of course, was the release of some details of the 9/11 Commission report. The report said that there was no credible evidence of any link between Saddam Hussein and the organization of the 9/11 Islamic terrorist attacks on America. It seemed as if the entire world of American journalism immediately went into a feeding frenzy with stories telling us that Bush's justification for the war, that Saddam was somehow connected with 9/11, had been debunked. The trouble is, as I told you yesterday, Bush never made that assertion! The Democratic co-chair of the 9/11 Commission, Lee Hamilton, even said that there was no justification for the tact the press was taking yesterday.

Well, Lee, you're wrong. There was a justification. In this election, like none I've ever seen before, the press is determined to be a factor. They are going to do everything they can to make every news story that comes along look bad for Bush ... even to the point of distorting the story itself.

OK ... I know. This doesn't apply to every person in Washington or New York making their living as a journalist. But you check out the stories yesterday on CNN, ABC, CBS, The New York Times, The LA Times, the Washington Post, Associated Press and more and you'll see what I'm talking about. Every one of these media outlets said that the 9/11 report debunked Bush's reason for ridding the world of Saddam ... even while the very chairman of the commission was saying it just ain't so.


FINALLY, THOUGH, THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION IS FIGHTING BACK

Finally, for once, the Bush administration has grown a pair and is hitting back over the media allegations that the 9/11 Commission has "discredited" the president's assertion that there was a relationship between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda. There clearly was, but such is their desire to defeat President Bush for re-election, the biased media is reporting otherwise.

Vice President Cheney said yesterday that the evidence was "overwhelming" that Al-Qaeda had a relationship with Iraq. He called the media reports that the 9/11 Commission report was contradictory "irresponsible." He also said "There clearly was a relationship. It's been testified to. The evidence is overwhelming." Cheney then went on to say the contact goes back to the 90's, and involved Osama Bin Laden and Iraqi intelligence officials.

Then, Cheney finally dropped the hammer. He said the press is "often times lazy, often times just reports what somebody else in the press said without doing their homework." Truer words have never been spoken, except he could have added that the Bush-hating liberal media wants to do everything it can to defeat his administration and elect The Poodle.

The Bush administration, including the president himself has said that there was a relationship between Al-Qaeda and Iraq, because there was. What the 9/11 Commission is saying is the same thing the president has said, which is that there is no evidence of a direct link between Iraq and the attacks of September 11th.

There was never a contradiction, nothing has been discredited and there is no inconsistency, and the media knows it. At least this time, the administration is hitting back.

Steve O.

[GalvestonDuck]

Argh! I agree! Why can't he get it straight?

There appears to be NO link whatsoever between the attacks that happened on September 11th and Saddam Hussein (except for the fact that Iraqis probably celebrated as much as other anti-Americans)...and no one EVER said there was.

This IS a link between Saddam Hussein and terrorist groups like al Qaeda.

[vbhoutex]

Why doesn't the man just change his name to FLIP FLOP??? He is worse than a fish out of water!!!!

[DROliver]

From The WSJ

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial ... =110005237


How will the media report millions DEAD? They will blame Bush!Even if Kerry is President.


REVIEW & OUTLOOK

Spinning 9/11
The press ignores the commission's most interesting findings.

Friday, June 18, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT

We'll say this on behalf of the latest staff reports from the 9/11 Commission: They are far more interesting than the media coverage suggests. Americans who go online to read the reports will actually learn a few things.

For example, they'll discover new details about the links between al Qaeda and Iran. The conventional wisdom has been that these Shiite and Sunni cultures couldn't meet, but the report says they did so "to cooperate against a common enemy"--the infidel U.S.

Specifically, al Qaeda operatives trained in Iran, and al Qaeda helped Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorists obtain explosives. Al Qaeda was also probably involved in two attacks on U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, including the 1996 bombing of Khobar Towers that killed 19 Americans and injured 372 and had previously been blamed largely on Hezbollah. This certainly sheds some useful light on State Department attempts to "engage" Tehran's mullahs as they attempt to build a nuclear bomb.

Another revelation concerns al Qaeda and anthrax. The 9/11 panel says al Qaeda had an "ambitious" biological weapons program and "was making advances in its ability to produce anthrax prior to September 11." It cites CIA Director George Tenet as saying that al Qaeda's ability to conduct an anthrax attack is "one of the most immediate threats the United States is likely to face." Given that we already were attacked by anthrax, and that we still don't know who did it, this sounds like news too.





Yet nearly all of the media coverage has focused on what the 9/11 panel claims it didn't find--namely, smoking-gun proof that al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein were working together. The country has traveled a long way psychologically from the trauma of September 11 if we are now focusing on the threats that allegedly don't exist instead of those that certainly do.
Or, to be more precise, we're further from 9/11 but very close to an election. The "no Saddam link" story is getting so much play because it fits the broader antiwar, anti-Bush narrative that Iraq was a "distraction" from the broader war on terror. So once again the 9/11 Commission is being used to tarnish the Iraqi effort and damage President Bush's credibility in fighting terror. John Kerry surely thinks so because he jumped on the coverage to once again assail Mr. Bush on Iraq.

Even here, though, the staff report is less a "slam dunk," as the CIA likes to say, than the coverage asserts. We are supposed to believe, for example, that the Commission has found out once and for all that there was no meeting in Prague between the Iraqi agent al-Ani and 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta. But the only new evidence the report turns up is that some calls were made from Florida on Atta's cell phone at the same time he was reportedly in Prague. And since that phone would not have worked in Europe anyway, how do we know someone else wasn't using it? The Czechs still believe the Atta meeting took place, and the truth is we still don't know for sure.

There's also the testimony the Commission heard Wednesday from Patrick Fitzgerald. The former Manhattan prosecutor was asked about his 1998 indictment against Osama bin Laden that asserted that al Qaeda had an "understanding" with Iraq that it would not "work against that government" and that "on certain projects, specifically including weapons development," they would "work cooperatively." Mr. Fitzgerald testified that "there was that relationship that went from opposing each other to not opposing each other to possibly working with each other."

Somehow the Commission also omitted any reference to Mr. Tenet's 2002 letter to Congress. "We have solid reporting of senior level contacts between Iraq and al-Qaeda going back a decade," he wrote. And, "We have credible reporting that al-Qaeda's leaders sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire W.M.D. capabilities. The reporting also stated that Iraq has provided training to al-Qaeda members in the areas of poisons and gases and making conventional bombs."





We could go on, but suffice to say that the report hardly disproves any Saddam-al Qaeda link. Mr. Bush was entirely correct when he said yesterday that, "The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al-Qaeda is because there was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda." The extent of those ties is the issue, and it is essential to U.S. security that we keep probing them. In particular, the President should order the release of some of the official Iraqi documents that coalition forces have captured in Iraq and that shed additional light on that relationship.
We thought everyone had learned the hard way on 9/11 that the greatest security danger comes not from taking threats too seriously but from dismissing them too easily. Apparently some people have forgotten that lesson already.


Steve O.

[bevgo]

I hate Kerry!

[Guest]

I agree with Kerry.

Bush owes us an explanation of why we RUSHED into war without a warplan.

[DROliver]

In case you missed it:

http://www.mediaresearch.org/cyberalert ... 0617.asp#1


Here is part of the story:


Nets Pounce on No bin Laden-Saddam Link,
But Bush Believed Media

The networks pounced Wednesday night on one sentence on the fifth page of a 9-11 Commission report released earlier in the day, which declared: “We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States.” Picking up on that exaggeration of administration claims, on CNN’s NewsNight, David Ensor asserted: “The commission staff report says Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11 and backs that up with some evidence.” Of course, administration officials never claimed any Iraqi connection to the 9-11 attacks, just a mutually-advantageous relationship over the years.

Thursday’s morning shows highlighted the finding, but didn’t air separate stories on it as did the network evening shows the night before. Thursday newspapers also touted the commission assertion. “Al Qaeda-Hussein Link is Dismissed,” declared a June 17 Washington Post front page headline.

MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann announced at the top of Wednesday’s Countdown: "Memo to the Vice President: 9/11 Commission finds, quote, 'no credible evidence,' unquote, of any link between al-Qaeda and Iraq.”

On the Wednesday CBS Evening News, John Roberts stressed how the commission’s claim undermines President Bush, describing the Iraq connection as “one of President Bush’s last surviving justifications for war in Iraq” and, he charged, “today it took a devastating hit when the 9-11 Commission declared there was no collaborative relationship between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.” Roberts concluded with a harsh judgment: “The report is yet another blow to the President’s credibility.”

“The 9/11 Commission contradicts the White House today,” NBC’s David Gregory contended on Nightly News, “particularly on claims that Iraq and al-Qaeda were linked before the war.” Gregory at least pointed out how “the report reveals for the first time that in 1994 an Iraqi intelligence official met Osama bin Laden in Sudan,” but he decided that “it’s clear this report is a blow to the President’s rationale for war.”

Over on ABC’s World News Tonight, Terry Moran proposed: “After the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq undermined President Bush’s main argument for going to war, this new finding by the 9-11 Commission challenges his case on another front.”

Unmentioned by ABC, how maybe the Bush administration believed there was a bin Laden-Saddam connection because they believed ABC News. In a story aired in a prime time news magazine show on Thursday, January 14, 1999, then-ABC News correspondent Sheila MacVicar reported how a few months after the embassy bombings in Africa and U.S. retaliation against Sudan, bin Laden “reaches out to his friends in Iraq and Sudan.” MacVicar trumpeted how “ABC News has learned that in December, an Iraqi intelligence chief, named Farouk Hijazi, now Iraq's ambassador to Turkey, made a secret trip to Afghanistan to meet with bin Laden. Three intelligence agencies tell ABC News they cannot be certain what was discussed, but almost certainly, they say, bin Laden has been told he would be welcome in Baghdad.”

I tracked down that ABC News story after seeing it referred to in an excerpt from a new book by Stephen Hayes, “The Connection: How al Qaeda's Collaboration with Saddam Hussein has Endangered America,” published in the June 7 Weekly Standard. Hayes cited similar news stories in Newsweek, the AP and NPR, in the 1998-99 range, which assumed bin Laden and Saddam Hussein were cooperative.

The Weekly Standard titled its excerpt, “The Connection: Not so long ago, the ties between Iraq and al Qaeda were conventional wisdom. The conventional wisdom was right.” In the book, Hayes recited numerous pieces of evidence of how Iraq and al-Qaeda had a mutually beneficial relationship. Here’s an excerpt from the Weekly Standard’s book excerpt in which Hayes recounted how the media assumed such a relationship, based on information provided by Clinton administration officials:

There was a time not long ago when the conventional wisdom skewed heavily toward a Saddam-al Qaeda links. In 1998 and early 1999, the Iraq-al Qaeda connection was widely reported in the American and international media. Former intelligence officers and government officials speculated about the relationship and its dangerous implications for the world. The information in the news reports came from foreign and domestic intelligence services. It was featured in mainstream media outlets including international wire services, prominent newsweeklies, and network radio and television broadcasts.

Newsweek magazine ran an article in its January 11, 1999, issue headed "Saddam + Bin Laden?" "Here's what is known so far," it read:

“Saddam Hussein, who has a long record of supporting terrorism, is trying to rebuild his intelligence network overseas -- assets that would allow him to establish a terrorism network. U.S. sources say he is reaching out to Islamic terrorists, including some who may be linked to Osama bin Laden, the wealthy Saudi exile accused of masterminding the bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa last summer.”

....NPR reporter Mike Shuster interviewed Vincent Cannistraro, former head of the CIA's counterterrorism center, and offered this report:

“Iraq's contacts with bin Laden go back some years, to at least 1994, when, according to one U.S. government source, Hijazi met him when bin Laden lived in Sudan. According to Cannistraro, Iraq invited bin Laden to live in Baghdad to be nearer to potential targets of terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait....Some experts believe bin Laden might be tempted to live in Iraq because of his reported desire to obtain chemical or biological weapons. CIA Director George Tenet referred to that in recent testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee when he said bin Laden was planning additional attacks on American targets.”

By mid-February 1999, journalists did not even feel the need to qualify these claims of an Iraq-al Qaeda relationship. An Associated Press dispatch that ran in the Washington Post ended this way: "The Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has offered asylum to bin Laden, who openly supports Iraq against Western powers."

Where did journalists get the idea that Saddam and bin Laden might be coordinating efforts? Among other places, from high-ranking Clinton administration officials.

In the spring of 1998 -- well before the U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa -- the Clinton administration indicted Osama bin Laden. The indictment, unsealed a few months later, prominently cited al Qaeda's agreement to collaborate with Iraq on weapons of mass destruction. The Clinton Justice Department had been concerned about negative public reaction to its potentially capturing bin Laden without "a vehicle for extradition," official paperwork charging him with a crime. It was "not an afterthought" to include the al Qaeda-Iraq connection in the indictment, says an official familiar with the deliberations. "It couldn't have gotten into the indictment unless someone was willing to testify to it under oath." The Clinton administration's indictment read unequivocally:

“Al Qaeda reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the Government of Iraq.”

END of Excerpt

Steve O.

[GalvestonDuck]

I agree with Kerry.

Bush owes us an explanation of why we RUSHED into war without a warplan.

How'd we "rush" into war? It took years before we went there.

[Lindaloo]

12 years to be exact. All he did was play cat and mouse with the UN. Ask the Kurds that same question zits.

[Guest]

12 years to be exact. All he did was play cat and mouse with the UN. Ask the Kurds that same question zits.

We could have waited another few months to be sure...LINDA.

[Lindaloo]

We could have waited another few months to be sure...LINDA.

ROTFLMAO!!!!

[Guest]

I agree with Kerry.

Bush owes us an explanation of why we RUSHED into war without a warplan.

How'd we "rush" into war? It took years before we went there.

The endgame prior to invasion was hasty, poorly planned, without international backing, shoddy, and deceptive, which resulted in unnecessary death. Consequently, Kerry will probably get elected.

Bush wanted to invade Iraq from the second he entered office. He just needed to get the timing down and the reasoning, but could get neither.

[Lindaloo]

Why did we need the backing? I mean it was obvious the tyrant was not going to comply with the UN after 12 years!!!

Please give us another thinking theory because this one does not hold water anymore and is a dead stick.

[Guest]

Why did we need the backing? I mean it was obvious the tyrant was not going to comply with the UN after 12 years!!!

Please give us another thinking theory because this one does not hold water anymore and is a dead stick.

We justified our entry based on false information.

Everone is happy that Hussein is done.

But the justification must be examined.

[Lindaloo]

Yeah, same old story, different day.

[chadtm80]

waaaaaa waaaaaaa.. Poor Hussein we should of given him another 10 years to comply.. We simply didnt give him enough time.. Its just not fair.. Bush and his supporters are just big bad bullies. In fact we gave him so much time that he was able to get the WMD in the hands of some that are prob even worst then he is.. Mark my words the WMD that you say there are none of will appear. But will prob appear after they have been used. and why? Because we gave him WAY TOO MUCH TIME.. SO stop with the we didnt give it enough time BS

[Guest]

Yeah, same old story, different day.

exactly

[opera ghost]

Here's my thinking.

The government now has thier story down pat- they now know exactly what they were doing and can justify it until the cows turn blue.

I actully agree with a number of thier current stock reasonings. Yes, I beleive that regime change was needed. I'm all for regime change. What disturbs me is the changes in reasons, the back peddling, the lying, and the hasty way this was done in the end.

IF we were going to have gone in there- we needed to go in with a clear objective, a clear, detailed plan with international support, and an equally clear and detailed exit plan once that objective was reached.

Instead we rushed in like fools under the banner of getting the evil terrorists who had WMD without international support- our objective was sweeping and vague, and we're still looking for a good exit plan.

I don't mind that Saddam needed to go. Sure! Gather enough intellegience to present to the international community, detail the clear and present danger- and have that support when you go in- and then get out once the regime change is finished. Giving freedom to a nation is an elusive and unclear goal- what kinds of freedoms did the people of Iraq want? Did they WANT a western style of government?

Did we really need the financial drain of essentially having a hostile colony? ...Which is a good reason for international support. I do NOT propose that we should have let the UN continue sanctions and slaps on the wrist with inspectors. If the case was as open and shut as it was presented to the people of the US- it should have been equally clear cut and presentable to the UN. If the UN had objections- maybe we should have listened.

We NEEDED international support to lessen the financial drain, to ease the american casualities, and to eliminate the petty bickering we got into and the lessened respect that other nations now have for us.

But we didn't bother getting that support and essentially spit on it at the start.... deciding to do things the hard way. Rogue nation. Joy.

THAT'S what I hold against the Bush administration. The eventual good that they did is NOT outweighed by the short term brute methods of enforcing that good. When it comes down to it- I have to decide whether to reelect the guys who strongarmed the issue and caused a lot of pain in an effort to create a greater good... or if I want to try with a new administration that might not be as strong- but may be just as sucessful in the long term without creating pain for those involved.

It was handled the wrong way IMHO. When an employee handles something the wrong way at my company- we let them go- even if it caused a greater good.

[Lindaloo]

IMO, we did the right thing. GO BUSH!!

Why would we need France? Would you back a war when you have financial ties to a regime that owed you millions of dollars? I do not think so. Same with Russia!

Funny now though, France has now joined with the United States on the handover. So all your points are moot.