Scholar's fallacy fed push for war
by Jay Bookman
AJC
Almost 70 percent of the American people believe -- incorrectly -- that Saddam Hussein played a role in the attacks of Sept. 11.
Now where would they get an idea like that?
Not from me, says President Bush. "We've had no evidence that Saddam was involved with the September 11th
," he said Wednesday.
Not from me, says National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. "We have never claimed that Saddam had either direction or control of 9-11," she said Tuesday.
Not from me, says Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. "I've not seen any evidence that would lead me to believe I could say that," he told reporters.
The outbreak of candor among Bush and his top aides was made necessary by statements from Vice President Dick Cheney in a Sept. 14 appearance on "Meet the Press." Cheney went seriously off-script in that interview, suggesting not only that Saddam might have been behind the attacks of Sept. 11, but also implying that Saddam sponsored the original attack on the World Trade Center in 1993.
Until that point, Bush officials had walked a careful line, not quite claiming that Saddam was connected to Sept. 11, but never quite acknowledging that he wasn't. But once Cheney uttered those words on national television, the game was up. Bush officials knew they would be forced either to embrace or repudiate the vice president's statement.
Given the evidence, they chose to repudiate it.
Cheney's remarks on "Meet the Press" deserve further scrutiny, however, particularly his attempt to link Saddam to the first attack on the World Trade Center, which killed six people. Once that claim is placed in context, it helps to illuminate the internal process by which the Bush administration decided to take this nation to war.
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/bookman/index.html
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