Journal illumin8's Journal: Bush still insists on lying to the American public 5
Yesterday, the 9/11 commission released a report on the ties (or lack thereof) between Iraq and Al Qaeda:
The 9/11 commission's report said bin Laden "explored possible cooperation with Iraq during his time in Sudan, despite his opposition to (Saddam) Hussein's secular regime."
It says the contact was pushed by the Sudanese, "to protect their own ties with Iraq," but after bin Laden asked for space in Iraq for training camps, "Iraq apparently never responded."
The report also said, "There have been reports that contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda also occurred after bin Laden had returned to Afghanistan, but they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship." - Source - CNN.com.
In the face of this damning evidence, the honorable thing to do would be to admit your error and apologize to the American public. Of course, this is expecting entirely too much from an administration that has repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to deceive the people in order to accomplish their political objectives.
Instead, the administration has gone into full-on damage control mode by sending Cheney out to try and discredit the media.
Let's compare Bush's statement from October 2002 (at the bottom of this article), with the findings of the 9/11 commission, and Bush's statement yesterday:
"Iraq has trained al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases." - GWB, October, 2002
"There have been reports that contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda also occurred after bin Laden had returned to Afghanistan, but they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship." - 9/11 Commission, June, 2004
"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." - GWB, June, 2004
Let's summarize here. It appears that the administration's strategy to mitigate the political damage caused by telling one lie, is simply to tell more lies. Brilliant, but it won't work. Do they really think the American public is that stupid?
not to be too cynical... (Score:1)
Re:not to be too cynical... (Score:2)
God, I hope not, but I just found this great Bushism that really explains a lot about their opinion of the American public:
"You can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on." -- George W. Bush (spoken at a Washington Dinner, March 2001)
Cheney's latest remarks on Iraqi-Al Qaeda ties (Score:2)
A) Based on my reading of the transcript of the full Cheney interview [drudgereportarchives.com], Cheney was largely attacking a misleading NY Times headline and was not engaged in an attempt to discredit the media in general. If you want to say equate the NY Times with "the media", then I would agree w
Re:Cheney's latest remarks on Iraqi-Al Qaeda ties (Score:1, Troll)
I think I appreciate now that there is some type of distinction between Iraqi involvement in 9/11 and simply Iraqi support for Al-Qaeda. You and I probably agree that Iraq was not involved with the 9/11 attacks. Whether Iraq has a relationship with Al-Qaeda or not is still up for debate, and I think, if Cheney's intelligence is
Cheney and Halliburton payoff (?) (Score:2)
The $64 (or is it $640?) billion dollar question is whether Bush brought us into a just war, and did he do so justly. I confess to not being fully convinced one way or the other yet. For me the issue turns on issues like "Did Bush lie?" "Does Bush passing along Tenet's 'slam dunk' analysis constitute either a lie or incompetence in Bush's assessment of intel or political risks?" "Are there highly pertinent pi