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Layer upon Layer of Lies
09/18/2003

I'd say the Washington Post was more than a little strong in its language when it declared today that President Bush "disavow[ed] a link [between Hussein and September 11] that had been hinted at previously by his administration." One might go so far as to call it disingenuous. Here's the full paragraph from the actual transcript:

We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the September 11th. What the Vice President said was, is that he has been involved with al Qaeda. And al Zarqawi, al Qaeda operative, was in Baghdad. He's the guy that ordered the killing of a U.S. diplomat. He's a man who is still running loose, involved with the poisons network, involved with Ansar al-Islam. There's no question that Saddam Hussein had al Qaeda ties.

The Post did note that last line later in the piece, but by separating "no evidence" from "no question," writer Dana Milbank is perpetuating this bizarre parsing of language to suggest that the administration has "hinted at" a September 11 connection, but that insisting that Hussein has had ties with the perpetrators of that attack for a decade carries no "hint" at all. The next step in this little twist of reality is to suggest that, because there's no evidence that Hussein helped out with September 11, the war in Iraq can't properly be called part of the War on Terrorism.

That's nonsense, but it's the sort of dissembling nonsense that certain segments of society have become well practiced at passing off as legitimate thought. As it happens, the very same article offers another piece of Lying Liars Initiative that has gone on to the next level of deception, the mischaracterizing paraphrase:

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Wednesday said he had no reason to believe that Hussein had a hand in the Sept. 11 attacks.

Unless Rumsfeld made remarks that I haven't seen, Milbank's statement is not true. How could people who can parse "hints" from "ties" from "links" not distinguish between having "no reason to believe that Hussein had a hand in" the attacks and having "not seen any indication that would lead me to believe that I could say that" Hussein "was involved in the September 11 attacks"? The administration has consistently asserted links between Iraq and al Qaeda, referring to cooperation between key figures from each. On top of the evidence that Iraq trained terrorists to hijack planes, it seems likely that the only "evidence" that's missing is a direct and specific instance of cooperation having to do explicitly with the Sept. 11 attack. As Lileks points out (in his inimitable fashion), with reference to a Weekly Standard must-read, the link is about as clear as is reasonable to expect in these shady matters.

That there was direct involvement is certainly a possibility. But — and this is to be stressed — there doesn't have to be for the link between Iraq and al Qaeda to have justified the regime change.

Posted by Justin Katz @ 05:34 PM EST