"Here in America we are living in the eye of a storm." Sorry, there are storms and this ain't it.
"Hear the words of Osama bin Laden: He calls the struggle in Iraq a `war of destiny.'"
"Victory in Iraq is important for Osama bin Laden, and victory in Iraq is vital for the United States of America.""

quoted here

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"n a televised address marking a year since the U.S. handover of sovereignty in Iraq, Bush urged Americans not to "forget the lessons of September 11."

Speaking before a military audience at Fort Bragg, North Carolina Tuesday, the president set out his strategy for victory against the insurgency, including foreign groups such as that led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

He also pledged that American troops would stay in Iraq until their job was done and that the U.S. would not "yield the future of the Middle East" to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terror network.

In a bid to shore up flagging domestic support for the war, Bush said the war against terror had "reached our shores" on September 11 and that sacrifices in Iraq were "vital to the future security of our country."" From here.

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B"ush Defends Assertions of Iraq-Al Qaeda Relationship
By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 18, 2004; Page A09

President Bush yesterday defended his assertions that there was a relationship between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda, putting him at odds with this week's finding of the bipartisan Sept. 11 commission.

"The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al Qaeda: because there was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda," Bush said after a Cabinet meeting. As evidence, he cited Iraqi intelligence officers' meeting with bin Laden in Sudan. "There's numerous contacts between the two," Bush said.

The finding of the commission's staff led Bush's Democratic challenger, Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), to escalate his accusations that Bush deceived both the Senate and the American public about the rationale for war in Iraq. "The president owes the American people a fundamental explanation about why he rushed to war for a purpose that it now turns out is not supported by the facts," Kerry told reporters at the Detroit airport. "That is the finding of this commission."" From here

"The Bush administration has long claimed links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida, and cited them as one reason for last year's invasion of Iraq.

On Monday, Vice President Dick Cheney said in a speech that the Iraqi dictator ``had long established ties with al-Qaida.''

The bipartisan commission issued its findings as it embarked on two days of public hearings into the worst terrorist attacks in American history.

The panel intends to issue a final report in July on the hijackings on Sept. 11, 2001 that killed nearly 3,000, destroyed the World Trade Centers in New York and damaged the Pentagon outside Washington. A fourth plane commandeered by terrorists crashed in the countryside in Pennsylvania." From here.

"President George W Bush used the fourth anniversary of the start of the Iraq war yesterday to warn that US withdrawal would unleash a "contagion of violence" that could spark a repeat of the September 11 attacks.

Although he conceded that there would be "bad days ahead", he insisted that there had been "good progress" in Iraq and there were "hopeful signs" that the influx of 30,000 additional troops would stabilise Baghdad." From here.

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"Bush warns 9/11 was only start of terror against U.S.
By Deb Riechmann,
Associated Press


New London, Conn. | President Bush portrayed the Iraq war as a battle between the U.S. and al-Qaida on Wednesday and shared nuggets of intelligence to contend Osama bin Laden was setting up a terrorist cell in Iraq to strike targets in America." From here.

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"Abstract: More than 70 percent of Americans supported the recent war with
Iraq. According to most theories of public opinion, support for this
war should have been extremely low, yet support was very high. We
suggest that the reason for such high levels of support was that the
Bush administration successfully convinced the American public that a
link existed between Saddam Hussein and terrorism generally, and
between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda specifically. We suggest that
framing the war on Iraq in this way made this war intimately connected
with September 11th in the eyes of the American people, leading to
levels of support for this war that stretched nearly as high as the
levels of support for the war in Afghanistan. To investigate the way in
which the Bush administration framed the war, we undertake a content
analysis of George W. Bush's speeches from September 11, 2001, to May
1, 2003. We find that from September 12, 2002, to May 2003, the
subjects of terrorism and Iraq were intertwined on a regular basis.
Thus we find the administration consistently connecting the Iraq War
with terror, terrorism, 9/11, and al Qaeda.
In order to accept this "Iraq as War on Terror" frame as legitimate,
the American people had to hear it, understand it, and be faced with no
other convincing frames. To evaluate the information flow during the
months preceding the Iraq War, we analyzed New York Times coverage of
major Bush speeches from September 11, 2002 to May 1, 2003 for the two
days following each of the speeches analyzed. We expected news coverage
of the Bush speeches to be negative, and thus provide an alternative
frame. We find that almost no debate occurred within the Times' news
coverage over the framing of the conflict in terms of terrorism, making
the "Iraq as War on Terror" frame by far the most important influence
on public attitudes. To track the way the public responded to this
rhetoric, we analyze polling data from multiple sources. We find
support for the war high, strong, and largely unconditional. We posit
that the public heard the Bush administration's rhetoric and responded
with high levels of support. We find that those who regularly heard the
Bush administration's rhetoric were more likely to think that there was
a strong connection between Saddam Hussein and terrorism, and we also
find that the stronger a respondent's perceived link between Iraq and
terrorism, the more likely that respondent was to support the war. We
demonstrate the causal relationship between hearing the rhetoric and
supporting the war by making use of data where respondents changed from
not supporting the war to supporting the war and credited certain
administration speeches as the reason for their transition. Other panel
data supports these results.
We then examine alternative explanations, and discuss why the data make
these stories less probable. In particular, the public's support did
not seem related to whether Iraq had WMD." From here.

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"Iraq & 9/11

The Bush administration repeatedly has constantly tried to link Iraq to the September 11th attacks. In fact, Bush submitted the following certification to Congress to authorize the use of force against Iraq:

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, organiza-tions, 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). Quoted here.

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Despite the doubts of many intelligence analysts, the five Administration officials
regularly asserted that there was a close relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda.
For example:
• In a November 7, 2002, speech, President Bush stated: Saddam Hussein is
"a threat because he is dealing with Al Qaida. . . . [A] true threat facing
our country is that an Al Qaida-type network trained and armed by
Saddam could attack America and not leave one fingerprint." 100
• In his January 28, 2003, State of the Union address, President Bush stated:
"Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications, and
statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and
protects terrorists, including members of al Qaeda. Secretly, and without
fingerprints, he could provide one of his hidden weapons to terrorists, or
help them develop their own."101

• In his February 5, 2003, remarks to the United Nations, Secretary of State
Colin Powell stated: "what I want to bring to your attention today is the
potentially much more sinister nexus between Iraq and the al Qaeda
terrorist network, a nexus that combines classic terrorist organizations and
modern methods of murder. Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network
headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi an associate and collaborator of Usama
bin Laden and his al-Qaida lieutenants."102
• In remarks on May 1, 2003, announcing the end of major combat
operations in Iraq, President Bush stated: "The battle of Iraq is one
victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11, 2001 — and
still goes on. . . . [T]he liberation of Iraq . . . removed an ally of al
Qaeda."103

Vice President Cheney's statements on this topic repeatedly cited reports of a
specific alleged Iraq–al Qaeda contact: a meeting between Mohammed Atta, one
of the September 11 hijackers, and a senior Iraqi official in Prague a few months
before September 11, 2001. For example, Vice President Cheney stated on
September 14, 2003:

With respect to 9/11, of course, we've had the story that's been public out
there. The Czechs alleged that Mohammed Atta, the lead attacker, met in
Prague with a senior Iraqi intelligence official five months before the
attack, but we've never been able to develop anymore of that yet either in
terms of confirming it or discrediting it. We just don't know.104
The Vice President's assertions about this meeting omitted key information. He
did not acknowledge that the CIA and FBI had concluded before the war in Iraq
that "the meeting probably did not take place";105 that Czech government officials
had developed doubts regarding whether this meeting occurred;106 or that
American records indicate that Mr. Atta was in Virginia Beach, Virginia, at the
time of the purported meeting.107

Assessments following the war further highlighted the tenuous nature of the
Administration's assertions about an Iraq-al Qaeda alliance. According to the
New York Times, "Since American forces toppled the Hussein government and the
United States gained access to captured Iraqi officials and Iraqi files, the C.I.A.
has not yet uncovered evidence that has altered its prewar assessment concerning
the connections between Mr. Hussein and Osama bin Laden, the leader of al
Qaeda, officials said."108

From The Waxman Report


I am sure there are many more but my fingers are getting tired...


A