Bush linked Saddam to 9-11

Lately the Bush administration has taken a deflationary line: "Oh, nobody ever linked Saddam and 9/11. Wherever did you get that idea? All we said was that there was a connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda.

The Daily Kos has the smoking gun, effectively written into the declaration of war A letter from the President to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and President Pro Tempore of the Senate.

Here is the damning excerpt from the letter:

I have reluctantly concluded, along with other coalition leaders, that only the use of armed force will accomplish these objectives and restore international peace and security in the area. I have also determined that the use of armed force against Iraq 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. United States objectives also support a transition to democracy in Iraq, as contemplated by the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 (Public Law 105-338)

Consistent with the War Powers Resolution (Public Law 93-148), I now inform you that pursuant to my authority as Commander in Chief and consistent with the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution (Public Law 102-1) and the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 (Public Law 107-243), I directed U.S. Armed Forces, operating with other coalition forces, to commence combat operations on March 19, 2003, against Iraq. [Kos' emphasis]

Notice how Bush leads with the 9/11 insinuation. Of course now, the retrospective justification machine is trying to tell us that we went to war for democracy and Iraqi freedom. But here, that's relegated to an afterthought.

Comments

[Kraorh]

The best you could find of a direct claim is a letter to the Speaker of the House and the President Pro Temp? One that I doubt 99% of Americans themselves ever read? And one that I don't believe anyone would've read and said, "Oh, so Iraq was behind 9/11 after all!"

In any event, now we've backed off from the claim that the Bush administration directly claimed a Saddam-link with 9/11, and now the claim is that Bush and his people insinuated a link. Despite the usual claim that Bush is an idiot and a simpleton who views the world in black and white, now the claim is that he's devious and clever enough to know how to subconsciously play with language, tricking the American people into believing there was a link when not only did he never make that direct claim, he explicitly denied that very claim many times over.

I guess I was immune to his linguistic trickery. I never got the idea from Bush, or anyone else, that there was a Saddam connection with 9/11. Somehow, I understood the claim was actually that 9/11 changed old conventional wisdom that nations could be passive, taking no action until actually attacked. I understood, while not necessarily agreeing with, the argument that preemptive action was necessary to prevent attacks on the magnitude of 9/11.

See, for example, this piece by Eugene Volokh from September 2002. I doubt Saddam would've gotten nukes by 2008 (unless he bought them from Iran or North Korea), but the scenario is just as plausible with chemical or biological weapons. Hell, forget WMD, agents probably could've coordinated something with by dynamiting subways or pulling massive Oklahoma City or Fight Club-style bombings, hence the worry about preventing blackmail before it happened.

Another example - suppose it's the Cold War, and I keep raising the spectres of Pearl Harbor in discussing the threats posed by the Soviet Union. Am I claiming or even insinuating that the Soviets were somehow behind Pearl Harbor? No, I'm talking about Pearl Harbor as a symbol and a strategy of attack that we should take steps to prevent and defend against. That's how I understood Bush's 9/11 rhetoric, and I'm bewildered that anyone else understood it differently.

Was Bush right to view Iraq this way, a threat of the magnitude of al-Qaeda? I'm inclined to think not, but that's another posting. The point is, I understood his claims, and reading these claims that somehow Bush actually said something 180 degrees different from what he actually said feels like revisionist history.

[Kraorh]

Oh, and then there's this:

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040618/D839DV0O1.html

I don't know what Putin thinks should have been done, but perhaps he would've backed me up on supporting an internal rebellion. Weird, I'm agreeing with Putin...

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

Everything the President has said must be evaluated in terms of a justification for war. Did he do everything he could to present the case for war fairly and fully? Or did he play on fears and innuendo when his ambitions outstripped his evidence? His job was to be open and explicit with us about why we should invade Iraq. He wasn't. He led us into this war like a typical evasive politician, not as a forthright man of character.

We're supposedly fighting a war on terror. Allegedly we are defending American liberty and security because terrorists attacked Americans on American soil. The President deliberately associated the invasion of Iraq with the war on terror. The implication was that Iraq had sponsored terrorism against us. It hadn't.

The rhetoric about "international terrorists" and "ties to terrorists groups" invited the inference that invading Iraq had a direct and pressing connection to American security. Otherwise, why rush into unilateral action? Bush should have shown either that Hussein posed an immediate threat to American security, or that Hussein had attacked (or helped to attack) America and provided a pretext for war.

Iraq was a state sponsor of terror, but not a sponsor of al-Qaeda. Iraq sponsored Palestinian terrorists and anti-Iranian terrorists. If Bush had been explicit about what kind of terrorism Iraq sponsored, it wouldn't have helped to justify an invasion. It wouldn't even have shown an immediate threat to American security of the caliber that would have justified a war.

[Jeff]

"People eat meat, including beef."

Does the above statement mean that all of the meat eaten by people is beef?

When you, Majikthise, stoop to drawing such ill formed conclusions through the most obvious of logical errors, you betray a seamy character along with your political desperation.

How, pray tell, do you expect anyone of three digit I.Q. to take you seriously?

[Kraorh]

1. What Jeff said. But perhaps put more diplomatically. :)

2. Everything the President has said must be evaluated in terms of a justification for war. Did he do everything he could to present the case for war fairly and fully? Or did he play on fears and innuendo when his ambitions outstripped his evidence? His job was to be open and explicit with us about why we should invade Iraq. He wasn't. He led us into this war like a typical evasive politician, not as a forthright man of character.

I won't speak to Bush's personal character (though I will say here that I've seen nothing to make me doubt his integrity). I'm not sure what your claims here have to do with the argument that Bush somehow misled Americans into believing a Saddam-link to 9/11. You seem here to be claiming on a more general level that Bush “played on fears and innuendo” to trick America into a war it didn't want or need.

Here's how I understood Bush's case: Reactions to terror before 9/11 were woefully inadequate, and only encouraged terrorists and terrorism-sponsors to step up their efforts. But 9/11 was an attack of such magnitude that stronger, more preemptive action to combat and prevent those attacks was required. As a tactic, terrorism had come of age, changing the relatively stable old order of state-vs-state warfare. One could not wait for strategic terrorism to be used against one, as something to legitimize a formal declaration of war. Such passivity would not only be interpreted as a sign of weakness and an invitation to attack (see also Soviet-era Afghanistan, Chechnya and Chechan terrorism in Russia proper), it would create the ripe conditions for blackmail (see the Volokh piece I linked). To protect its citizens, nations could not take their safety for granted; they had be pro-active. The idea is to not only go after current threats; the whole idea is to go after nations and groups before they become full-scale threats.

The hope here, as I understand it, is that such a paradigm would prevent future 9/11's. Such a doctrine would've meant that instead of waiting until after the massive attacks of 9/11, al-Qaeda and the Taliban would have been targeted in 1998 or earlier, undermining their ability to launch organized attacks. With the 9/11 Commission, there's now a lot of talk about what dots should have been connected by the Clinton and Bush administrations that could have stopped al-Qaeda. The case for war against Iraq, as I read it, was put together in that very same spirit. I also see connections to what environmentalists call the “precautionary principle” – merely applied to foreign policy.

As I said before, I personally have reservations about this as a doctrine of foreign policy or as a means of fighting all terrorism, and/or as a justification of war against Iraq. But it is a coherent, internally consistent doctrine that the Bush administration argued for with sincerity, as far as I could tell.

Speaking, again, outside of the context of the 9-11/Saddam connection, I think that may be one reason why there's such a disconnect between what Bush considered actionable intelligence and what liberals found lacking as a casus belli. Bush was thinking like Volokh above – not in terms of what threat does Saddam pose to us today, with his paper tiger military and (apparently) decaying WMD program, but what threat could he pose if sufficiently inspired by 9/11-esque tactics? Anti-war liberals, on the other hand, held a much stricter standard, one analogous to a courtroom, where Bush was supposed to play the role of the prosecuting attorney, convincing the jury of Saddam's guilt beyond a shadow of a doubt. Conservatives were not willing to tolerate such a shadow of a doubt.

Given the above paradigm, much of the case for any preemptive war will have to be justified by the merely possible and the potential. But by the lights of this doctrine of justified war, it's perfectly in fair to make this kind of case.

We're supposedly fighting a war on terror. Allegedly we are defending American liberty and security because terrorists attacked Americans on American soil. The President deliberately associated the invasion of Iraq with the war on terror. The implication was that Iraq had sponsored terrorism against us. It hadn't.

I'm still having trouble seeing how it could have been an implication we were all supposed to get when so few did, and when it was denied explicitly. That's a weird way of trying to get people to believe something. And anyway, the doctrine he was advocating loud and clear of course involved discussing 9/11 as a symbol bad stuff that could happen if the US remained passive. Bush also talked about Neville Chamberlain, but I never got from that association the impression that he was saying that Saddam had ties to the Third Reich.

The rhetoric about "international terrorists" and "ties to terrorists groups" invited the inference that invading Iraq had a direct and pressing connection to American security. Otherwise, why rush into unilateral action? Bush should have shown either that Hussein posed an immediate threat to American security, or that Hussein had attacked (or helped to attack) America and provided a pretext for war.

Now the Saddam/9-11 connection is an “invited inference?” Despite being explicitly denied by that very same administration? I'm beginning to wonder if there's anything they could have done short of hiring skywriters to plaster the skies of every city in America with “Though we think the Iraq is part of the War on Terror, we do not believe Saddam was behind 9/11” that would've satisfied this criticism.

And as a pet peeve, please do not refer to the war as “unilateral.” I think it's highly insulting to the British, Polish, Spanish, Italian, and other families that lost soldiers to the war. It's also just false. Last time I checked, “unilateral” involved “uni-” as a prefix, meaning “one.” As soon as one other country is involved, it's no longer unilateral. Them's the rules of grammar. Also, I think it was hardly “rushing” into war when the war started in April 2003 and the process that led to it began over a year previous (or by some lights, in 1991).

And anyway, I don't think you would've supported the war if France, Germany, Russia and the whole UN had been successfully persuaded to get behind it (and it wasn't for want of trying...). It was either morally appropriate to get involved or not, and I don't see how it magically would've become more moral if the entire UN thought it was a good idea, or less if the Brits, Poles, etc. didn't get involved. That's the fallacy ad populum, as I understand it.

Iraq was a state sponsor of terror, but not a sponsor of al-Qaeda. Iraq sponsored Palestinian terrorists and anti-Iranian terrorists. If Bush had been explicit about what kind of terrorism Iraq sponsored, it wouldn't have helped to justify an invasion. It wouldn't even have shown an immediate threat to American security of the caliber that would have justified a war.

I think I've already more or less answered this, but I'll take a stab at another analogical argument. Say it's Medieval times, and you're the queen of a powerful country. A Barbarian tribe invents a new tactic against which there was little defense: scaling the walls of castles with ladders. The Barbarians in question successfully deploy this tactic against one of your castles to devastating effect. As you recover, you get wind that an old enemy of yours has been investigating these ladders, and indeed, was using them against his neighbors, helping other Barbarian tribes do the same. This old enemy has sworn time and again to do whatever it takes to bring about your ruin, and you have no doubt that if the opportunity to do something of that magnitude arose, without harming himself, he'd take it. Now, when contemplating a new war with this old enemy, would it be wrong for you, as Queen, to enter into her equations that the enemy is heavily engaged in making ladders and sponsoring those who use them against others? Or does the fact that this enemy has apparently never been involved in using those ladders against you mean that his involvement with the ladder industry should play no role in your decision to go to war or sue for peace?

[Jeff]

1. What Jeff said. But perhaps put more diplomatically.

I didn't not intend to be so pointed. Rather, I intended to highlight the probable negatives consequences of the type of malformed argument in question. Instead I seem to have degraded the arguer. I seem to have betrayed my seamy character. I apologize.

[Thad]

I'm still having trouble seeing how it could have been an implication we were all supposed to get when [b]so few did[/b] [...] [Emphasis added]

Really?

[Kraorh]

Thad - sorry, I mispoke. Did I mention I typed that mostly after midnight? My bad. I don't remember exactly what I was thinking, but I don't think I meant to say that.

In my defense, I will note that the 70% in question are asked not if there was a link, but if a link was likely. The lack of certainty may be why that same poll showed only a pluralty of support behind the idea that the war was worth the resources and lives it had cost up until that point. Otherwise, it's mysterious why that 20% gap would exist - 20% who think it's likely Saddam played a role in the most devestating attack against American civilians ever, and yet doubt that the hundred or so lives that had been lost by that point weren't worth it?? How many lives did we lose fighting Japan after they only killed a few hundred in Pearl Harbor?

Anyway. Submitted for your consideration, I will concede that the above claim was the product of late-night brain fart. Though I will maintain that

a) the possiblity of the Saddam link to 9/11 wasn't a primary reason of people's support for the war (it was more the threat of future attacks in that style, his brutality as a leader, and suspicion over WMD), and,

b) given the popularity of conspiracy theories for everything, that people would suspect Saddam is not too surprising, but I haven't seen anything that indicates that the Bush Admin did anything illicit to take advantage of that suspicion.

[Thad]

Kraorh,

Hey, late night brain farts are my bread and butter, man.

Anyway:

In my defense, I will note that the 70% in question are asked not if there was a link, but if a link was likely.

Sure. But the point is, where would 70% of the American people have gotten an idea like that? Sure, some people are always going to believe conspiracy theories, but these memes have to start somewhere. And we are talking seventy percent of the US population here. In order to gain so much popular currency, the fraudulent Saddam-9/11 link is an idea that had to have been pushed pretty hard by someone....

Let me put it another way -- when you're watching your stereotypical party-scenario beer commercial, do they ever come right out and say that if you drink our beer, you'll be cool and get to go to parties like this and possibly get laid by girls like you see right here?

[Thad]

Kraorh,

Hey, late night brain farts are my bread and butter, man.

Anyway:

In my defense, I will note that the 70% in question are asked not if there was a link, but if a link was likely.

Sure. But the point is, where would 70% of the American people have gotten an idea like that? Sure, some people are always going to believe conspiracy theories, but these memes have to start somewhere. And we are talking seventy percent of the US population here. In order to gain so much popular currency, the fraudulent Saddam-9/11 link is an idea that had to have been pushed pretty hard by someone....

Let me put it another way -- when you're watching your stereotypical party-scenario beer commercial, do they ever come right out and say that if you drink our beer, you'll be cool and get to go to parties like this and possibly get laid by girls like you see right here?