Reply #9: This is not linking 9-11 to Iraq [View All]

When you say that, you say that he's insinuating that Saddam is at least partially responsible for the attacks. Nice try. Read the statement.

Although he was suckered by the deliberate false intelligence on Iraq, nowhere in this statement is he saying that Saddam is responsible for 9-11. He's drawing the comparison that a threat should be dealt with if it's known. There's NO ATTEMPT TO LINK THEM HERE. There is the usage of the fear of the times to attempt to justify dealing with another threat, but no linkage.

Junior and his mob repeatedly claimed that Saddam had ties to Al-Queda, that Atta met with an Iraqi Intelligence officer in Prague and any number of other lies, and they carefully mentioned terrorism and 9-11 close to Saddam and Iraq in sentences to reinforce the belief. Yes, Edwards is using the fear of vulnerability to justify pressure to remove Hussein, but your use of the term "linked 9-11 to Iraq" more than implies that he's saying Saddam was at least partially responsible for the attacks.

Here's another bit from that same press release: "The first anniversary of terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, he said, is a reminder that Iraq's arsenal of weapons of mass destruction would wreak havoc if Saddam Hussein let them fall into the hands of terrorists." No suggestion of Saddam's involvement in the attacks here.

He goes on to say "...there is every reason to believe that Saddam would turn his weapons over to these terrorists. No one can doubt that if the terrorists of September 11 had had weapons of mass destruction, they would have used them. On September 12, 2002, we can hardly ignore the terrorist threat and the serious danger that Saddam would allow his arsenal to be used in aid of terror."

Yes, this is saying that he could do such a thing in the future, but nowhere does he suggest that Hussein had ANYTHING to do with 9-11. If you want to say that he was going along with the fear of the moment to justify removing a dangerous person from power, that's one thing, but to say he's linking Saddam with 9-11 is a blatant distortion. How are you any better than this? Your term "linked 9-11 to Iraq" is a deliberate attempt to get us to think he said or suggested that Saddam was behind the attacks. He didn't.

It's the most frustrating thing he's ever done that I know of, and I and many others are not pleased by this episode and have said so repeatedly, but stick with the facts; they're bad enough.

We know you intensely dislike this man; the point has been driven home ad infinitum, but you have no right to call out others for distortion if you persist in granting yourself the right to do so yourself.

It's also interesting to see this: "We must be prepared to deal with the consequences of success," he said. The Bush administration "must not make the same mistakes in post-Saddam Iraq that they are making in post-Taliban Afghanistan, where they have been dangerously slow in making the real commitment necessary to help democracy take root,"

He should get a point or two for sense for that last part, don't you think?

I'm working long hours away from the computer for the next few days, so it'll take me some time to reply to your inevitable rejoinders.