host,
I've snipped out the sections of your previous that have to do with the Bush administration (through its officials) asserting a link between Iraq and the 9/11 attacks. The first is what I characterized as an op-ed piece. This may not be a fair label, but I'm not sure what else to call it. It's merely Benjamin's claim that Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld (notable not Dick Cheney or even G.W. Bush) said things, without any quotations, context, or proof.
Holy Zarqawi
Why Bush let Iraq's top terrorist walk. By Daniel Benjamin
Quote:
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Originally Posted by slate.com
After 9/11, senior officials such as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, simply refused to believe the assessment of the intelligence community that Iraq had no hand in the attack and that al-Qaida operated independently of state support.
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Cheney's Debate Misrepresentations on Iraq.
This one is a news report, but is not much more than a rehash of the one claim of Cheney's statement that Atta met Iraqi agents once in Prague. Once again, while this statement is now unproveable, it was for a short time confirmed by the Czech government. And yes, I know that their confirmation was sloppy, unwarrented, and bizarrely delayed and later retracted. I bolded Cheney's interesting and indignant claim that he never made that claim (other than the one thing, which he admitted saying in a very specific way).
Quote:
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Originally Posted by msnbc.com
Cheney, challenged by Edwards, insisted last night that “I have not suggested there’s a connection between Iraq and 9/11.” But that claim is belied by an array of interviews and public comments in which Cheney has done precisely that—by repeatedly invoking claims that 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta had met in Prague with an Iraqi intelligence agent. That allegation was also debunked by the 9/11 commission after the panel found abundant evidence that Atta was actually in the United States at the time the rendezvous supposedly took place.
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Please note that this post concerns your posts 63 and 64, and your question about my characterization of some of their contents as op-ed. While I admit that I may have applied that label inappropriately, I'm not sure what to call the first of these snippets. The second is, as we both acknowledge, another report of one claim, which may have been made several times.
And please forgive me for harping on this, but it is striking that I could only pull 6 lines of directly relevant text out of your approximately 26 pages of linked text (all of which I read).
I'm currently reading through your more recent post, so I'll respond when I've finished. I promise I haven't forgotten or moved on.
This may be a moot point by now (and I'll find out soon), but I again want to emphasize that the question I asked was about the Bush administration alleging that Iraq was linked or responsible for the 9/11 attacks. I saw many people decrying those claims, but don't remember hearing administration officials making them (your incident with Cheney's favorite citation of a temporarily confirmed report aside). I'm thinking that if the Bush administration was really making that claim as a justification for invading Iraq, then we ought to be able to find out when and where they said it, not to mention just what was said. At this point, I think Wolfowitz is the most likely suspect, as he has always seemed the most hawkish of the bunch.
I should state outright that I don't think claims of co-existence or even cooperation between Iraq and Qaeda agents are enough to support an Iraq-9/11 connection. They are a claim that Iraq consorted with terrorists, but as we've noted, it is widely accepted that the 9/11 attacks were planned and perpetrated by a small number of people - it seems to be the only way they could have been kept secret. If your assertion that the Bush administration has claimed a link between Iraq and 9/11 is based on the Zarqawi stuff or non-aggression pacts between bin Laden and Hussein, I think we'll have to agree to disagree - I just don't think that is strong enough to justify the outrage over that claimed connection.
Again, I'm not necessarily arguing that you're wrong. I'd just like to see the administration's words from their own mouths. I've never understood where all that hoopla was coming from. I'd very much appreciate someone pointing it out to me more clearly. I'll get back to sorting through your most recent posts, so I apologize if you've already done so.