From the
National Journal:
Ten days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World
Trade Center and the Pentagon, President Bush was told in a highly
classified briefing that the U.S. intelligence community had no evidence
linking the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein to the attacks and that there was
scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties
with Al Qaeda, according to government records and current and former
officials with firsthand knowledge of the matter.The information was provided to Bush on September 21, 2001 during the
“President’s Daily Brief,” a 30- to 45-minute early-morning national
security briefing. Information for PDBs has routinely been derived from
electronic intercepts, human agents, and reports from foreign intelligence
services, as well as more mundane sources such as news reports and public
statements by foreign leaders.One of the more intriguing things that Bush was told during the briefing
was that the few credible reports of contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda
involved attempts by Saddam Hussein to monitor the terrorist group. Saddam
viewed Al Qaeda as well as other theocratic radical Islamist organizations
as a potential threat to his secular regime. At one point, analysts
believed, Saddam considered infiltrating the ranks of Al Qaeda with Iraqi
nationals or even Iraqi intelligence operatives to learn more about its
inner workings, according to records and sources.The September 21, 2001, briefing was prepared at the request of the
president, who was eager in the days following the terrorist attacks to
learn all that he could about any possible connection between Iraq and Al
Qaeda.
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We don’t need Senate to investigate the intelligence failures when we got
reporters doing it. This is alarming proof that Bush continued to lie and
manipulate intelligence in order to prove his case for the Iraq war. Now we
learn that ten days after the 9/11 attacks he was told there was no connection,
yet he continued to assert there was.
Vice-President Cheney even hinted at the connection once again during his
speech yesterday. This is proof of the Bush administrations tactic of leading
the country by fear. They know fear became the largest emotion stearing the
nation after the 9/11 attacks and feel they can continue to use it to promote
their agendas. America is braver now and won’t bow down to the fear tactic of
Bush. Bush is the one who should be in fear now, fear of crimes against the
constitution of the United States and having to answer for these before
Congress.