Wait a Minute!!!Does or Doesn't Bush Believe In Iraq's Role in 9/11??

The White House......CNN ^ | 3/19/03..9/18/03 | White House & CNN

[joesbucks]

Ok. Help me here. On 9/19 the President said that "there was no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001"......"We have no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the September 11".

Yet in a note to the Speaker on March 19th, he said:

Consistent with section 3(b) of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 (Public Law 107-243), and based on information available to me, including that in the enclosed document, I determine that:

(1) reliance by the United States on further diplomatic and other peaceful means alone will neither (A) adequately protect the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq nor (B) likely lead to enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq; and

(2) acting pursuant to the Constitution and Public Law 107-243 is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.

Sincerely,

GEORGE W. BUSH

What gives?

[MEG33]

Including is the operative word here.No one disputes Saddam promoted terrorism.

[AppyPappy]

On 9/19 the President said that "there was no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001"......"

Link to the exact quote please.

[Peach]

I don't understand your confusion. The Bush doctrine as outlined numerous times is that we will not only go after terrorists themselves, but those who harbour them, give them money, train them, etc.

We KNOW Iraq was training al Qaeda and giving them safe harbour. Many suspect Iraq was more involved in planning 9/11 than reported, but proof is another matter. Barring a video of Saddam and OBL plotting 9/11, what kind of evidence could we find that would stand up to the relentless press criticism that will do/say anything to undermine the Bush administration.

[alnick]

Allow me to point out the obvious to you.

You quoted: "(2) acting pursuant to the Constitution and Public Law 107-243 is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001."

Do you see the word "including"? That means that those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001 are SOME of the international terrorists and terrorist organizations referred to. The use of the word "including" is not all inclusive.

[Prodigal Son]

I don't understand your confusion.

Me neither.

[Clara Lou]

To reiterate post #2: including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11,...
[emphasis mine]

[MEG33]

We agree.

[Peach]

Giving the Freeper the benefit of the doubt, the press has done all it can to sow the seeds of doubt.

They keep repeating the mantra that the president says Saddam wasn't behind the 9/11 attacks. What they don't go on to say is that we KNOW they were behind the first WTC attacks (as articulated by Cheney last week on Russert, books written, FBI data, etc.) and that people are smart enough to make a linkage between two enemies who have sworn to hurt the United States.

[ChuckShick]

Look at public law 107-243. The wording is identical to the words in the letter from Bush. He was merely complying with Congress' request to inform them of his intentions, nothing more, nothing less.

[Erik Latranyi]

Only a Clintonista would try to parse words in reverse in order to attack the Bush Administration.

Bush does not speak Clinton when making policy. He clearly states what his position is and stands by it.

Bush does not want "wiggle room" in his policies like his predecesor.

[The G Man]

No one disputes Saddam promoted terrorism

Well, noone but the Kool Aid drinkers on the left that is.

[cyborg]

But did he have anything to with 9-11? It has not been proven. If Duybya is going to have a WOT, then he should lob some bombs at Saudi Arabia too. I'll hold my breath for that one. Aside from Saudi Arabia, lots of other people promote terrorism as well. I'm going to wait and watch us drag our feet about North Korea.

[Toskrin]

Hard to parse this, but (1) says that Iraq is a threat to national security and is unlikely to comply with UN resolutions, and (2) says that attacking Iraq is consistent with continuing the war on terrorism, and that it does not interfere with pursuing 9/11 terrorists.

I have seen no proof that Iraq directly contributed to 9/11. They may have provided government-sponsored training for some people who ended up in al Qaeda, however.

There does not have to be a unifying theory of evil in the Middle East. There's plenty of leaders who go about pursuing evil on their own separate paths...

[anglian]

Laurie Mylroie is the author of "Study of Revenge: Saddam Hussein's Unfinished War," which outlines her case that Iraq also had a central role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing The rulers in Iraq have also long admired the methods of bin Laden and other anti-American terrorists, going back before September 11, 2001. This is clear simply from reading the Iraqi press which was government controlled.......

In a July 21, 2001, commentary in the Iraqi publication Al-Nasiriya praised bin Laden: "In this man's heart you'll find an insistence, a strange determination that he will reach one day the tunnels of the White House and will bomb it with everything that is in it."

The article recounts bin Laden's attacks on U.S. targets and U.S. efforts "to pressure the Taliban movement so that it would hand them bin Laden, while he continues to smile and still thinks seriously, with the seriousness of the Bedouin of the desert about the way he will try to bomb the Pentagon after he destroys the White House."

The commentary is ominously prescient, especially since it could never have appeared without official sanction."Bin Laden is a healthy phenomenon in the Arab spirit," it continues, speaking about his goal to "drive off the Marines" from Arabia. The writer adds that those Marines "will be going away because the revolutionary bin Laden is insisting very convincingly that he will strike America on the arm that is already hurting... That the man will curse the memory of Frank Sinatra every time he hears his songs." Is that a reference to Sinatra's "New York, New York"? Did Saddam know what would happen two months later?

[alnick]

If Duybya is going to have a WOT, then he should lob some bombs at Saudi Arabia too.

How many times have you heard that this will be a different kind of war, that much of what will happen in this war will not be military and that we will never even know about it?

Aside from Saudi Arabia, lots of other people promote terrorism as well.

Are we supposed to attack them all simultaneously in order to avoid the criticism of "Why are we attacking [insert country]? What about [insert country]? Don't they support terrorism too? Why are we attacking [insert country] rather than [insert country]?

[The Duke]

One thing is certain, we didn't go into Iraq out of any moral need we felt to liberate the people - or for any other humanitarian reason. Were that the case we would have had troops fighting all over the world for decades.

The fact that the administration even played that card calls into question the veracity of its other stated reasons for war.

[SuziQ]

There's nothing in that statement that mentions 9/11. I've never heard the President say that Sadaam was directly involved. He has always stated that Sadaam was a threat to his own people and the region. By destabilizing the Middle East, he was a threat to us because there are terrorists in the Middle East who DO want to hurt us, and they were being supported, figuratively, if not literally, by Sadaam.

[sirchtruth]

Obvious hit & run. The cows will come home before the Bush bashers will stop their renlentless, irrelevant, useless attacks on what the Prez never said!

[Cacophonous]

This is a little off the topic of the thread, but:

Hard to parse this, but (1) says that Iraq is a threat to national security and is unlikely to comply with UN resolutions...

Doesn't it piss you off that we mention national security - presumably that of the US - and comliance with the UN in the same breath? As if any UN resolution has the interests of US national security at heart.

Why do we even care what the UN has to say about US actions?