President Bush claims that he
never made the Saddam-9/11 link before invading Iraq:
Bush acknowledged on Friday there was no evidence of such a link.
"There was no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the attack of 9/11," Bush said. "I've never said that and never made that case prior to going into Iraq."
Never made the case that Saddam has some connection to 9/11? The implications, from Bush's own mouth:
Nearly two years ago, following deadly attacks on our country, we began a systematic campaign against terrorism. These months have been a time of new responsibilities, and sacrifice, and national resolve and great progress. ...
Two years ago, I told the Congress and the country that the war on terror would be a lengthy war, a different kind of war, fought on many fronts in many places. Iraq is now the central front. link
Bush is playing stupid, but the evidence proves that Bush, in the very days after 9/11, had already launched a campaign to convince the public that Iraq was indeed connected to 9/11:
Wesley Clark told anchor Tim Russert that Bush administration officials had engaged in a campaign to implicate Saddam Hussein in the September 11 attacks-- starting that very day. Clark said that he'd been called on September 11 and urged to link Baghdad to the terror attacks, but declined to do so because of a lack of evidence.
CLARK: "There was a concerted effort during the fall of 2001, starting immediately after 9/11, to pin 9/11 and the terrorism problem on Saddam Hussein."
RUSSERT: "By who? Who did that?"
CLARK: "Well, it came from the White House, it came from people around the White House. It came from all over. I got a call on 9/11. I was on CNN, and I got a call at my home saying, 'You got to say this is connected. This is state-sponsored terrorism. This has to be connected to Saddam Hussein.' I said, 'But--I'm willing to say it, but what's your evidence?' And I never got any evidence." link
More on the flip...
While Bush may have been more subtle in tying Hussein to the 9/11 attacks, his minion were not. From Former CIA Director James Woosley:
"[I]t's not impossible that terrorist groups could work together with the government...the Iraqi government has been quite closely involved with a number of Sunni terrorist groups and -- on some matters -- has had direct contact with (Osama) bin Laden," [Woolsey] told one anchorman in a series of at least half a dozen national television appearances on Sep. 11 and 12.
That same evening, Kristol echoed Woolsey on National Public Radio. "I think Iraq is, actually, the big, unspoken sort of elephant in the room today. There's a fair amount of evidence that Iraq has had very close associations with Osama bin Laden in the past, a lot of evidence that it had associations with the previous effort to destroy the World Trade Center (in 1993).link
Bush and his administration knew that invading Iraq would have to be sold delicately to the American people. Bush followed Powell's advice that Hussein could be overthrown if Bush linked him to the War on Terror--which of course was launched as a response to the Sept. 11 attacks:
Saturday, September 15, President Bush gathered his closest advisers at Camp David to discuss the shape of the coming war. Much of their discussion dealt with Afghanistan. But during a session that morning, according to Bob Woodward's 2002 book, Bush at War, Wolfowitz advocated an attack on Iraq, perhaps even before an attack on Afghanistan. There was a 10 to 50 percent chance that Iraq had been involved in 9/11, he argued, concluding that Saddam's "brittle, oppressive regime" might succumb easily to an American attack--in contrast to the difficulties involved in prosecuting war in the mountains of Afghanistan.
Sitting across the table, Colin Powell was appalled. To attack Iraq without clear evidence of Saddam's involvement in September 11 would drive America's allies away, he argued. Much better to go after bin Laden's obvious state sponsor, the Taliban. If that went well, it would only enhance America's ability to oust Saddam later. In front of his advisers at Camp David, and in later interviews, Bush indicated that he supported Powell's argument. During the lunch break, the president sent a message to Wolfowitz and the other neocons, indicating that he did not wish to hear any more about Iraq that day. But, according to Richard Perle, Wolfowitz had planted a seed. Bush told Perle at Camp David that once Afghanistan had been dealt with, it would be Iraq's turn. link
If he was so convinced there was "no evidence" of a Hussein-9/11 connection after September 11th, why did he sign off on Sept. 17 on plans to invade Iraq?
On Sept. 17, 2001, six days after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President Bush signed a 2½-page document marked "TOP SECRET" that outlined the plan for going to war in Afghanistan as part of a global campaign against terrorism.
Almost as a footnote, the document also directed the Pentagon to begin planning military options for an invasion of Iraq, senior administration officials said....The Washington Post, 1/12/03 (reprinted here).
Talk about a rewriting of history. If you want to see how Bush sold the Iraq war, check out the Downing Street Memo timeline here.