Caveat Emperor

June 18, 2004

Bush yesterday:

This administration never said that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated between Saddam and al Qaeda. We did say there were numerous contacts between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. [ Bush Defends Assertions of Iraq-Al Qaeda Relationship ]

Protestations to the contrary, this administration has certainly tried to blur the issue as much as possible—to the point that Neoconservatives and religious fundamentalists have been casting any political opposition to the president as collusion with Osama bin Laden.

If the President feels maligned now because people distrust him now that they find Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11—despite the fact that he never explicitly made that claim—it’s hard to feel sorry for him. The confusion was of his own design, and while it benefited him politically he was happy to exploit it.

But now that it starts to turn on him, he’s trying to insist that he never intended to give anyone that impression. Unfortunately, if he backs away from his “Iraq culpable for 9/11” line, it seems to me he has to answer this question:

Why, if Iraq was not tied to the 9/11 plot, did we pull resources out of Afghanistan, where we were pursuing the real person responsible?

Posted in War