The 9/11 Commission's Iraq/al Qaeda Statement Enters Phase 2

In April 2003, I noted the truth by repetition strategy of creating "common knowledge." In September, I described the mechanism whereby true statements are transformed into a pattern of deception. A sort of in between strategy — which I think I've described before but can't find just now — is to add layers of spin until an untruth is common knowledge. The 9/11 Commission's suggestion about links between Iraq and al Qaeda has already entered its second phase of spin.

The statement itself, the context of which seems to overstate what can be said to be "apparent," is simply: "We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States." From this, the Associated Press reported:

The commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks found "no credible evidence" of a link between Iraq and al-Qaida in attacks against the United States, contradicting President Bush's assertion that such a connection was among the reasons it was necessary to topple Saddam Hussein.

Note the contorted language: "a link between Iraq and al-Qaida in attacks." What does that even mean, grammatically? What it means, in practice, is that the reporter, Hope Yen, was trying to find a way to reconcile the first-paragraph declaration of a Bush "assertion" with the sixth-paragraph admission that:

[The Bush administration] stopped short of claiming that Iraq was directly involved in the Sept. 11 attacks but critics say Bush officials left that impression with the American public.

Be the difference between giving critics an impression and making an assertion what it may, "no evidence of cooperation" has become "no evidence of a link," something that the commission's document (PDF) clearly disproves:

The Sudaneses, to protect their own ties with Iraq, reportedly persuaded Bin Ladin to cease this support [of anti-Saddam Islamists] and arranged for contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda. A senior Iraqi intelligence officer reportedly made three visits to Sudan, finally meeting Bin Ladin in 1994... There have been reports that contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda also occurred after Bin Ladin had returned to Afghanistan, but they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship.

Nonetheless, the layering continues. Today, the AP blurs all distinctions between ties, links, collaboration on specific projects, and so on, and presents the commission's statement as evidence that one of the president's justifications for war has been undermined:

The independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks said Wednesday that no evidence exists that al-Qaida had strong ties to Saddam Hussein - a central justification the Bush administration had for toppling the former Iraqi regime. Bush also argued that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, which have not been found, and that he ruled his country by with an iron fist and tortured political opponents.

Although bin Laden asked for help from Iraq in the mid-1990s, Saddam's government never responded, according to a report by the commission staff based on interviews with government intelligence and law enforcement officials. The report asserted that "no credible evidence" has emerged that Iraq was involved in the Sept. 11 strikes.

Bush said Saddam was a threat because he had not only ties to al-Qaida, but to other terrorist networks as well.

Now, "cooperation on attacks" is made to cover everything from vague "strong ties" to specific involvement "in the Sept. 11 strikes." Everything but the carefully worded claim that the commission actually made. In this way, the president can always be said to have premised the war on something that isn't proven.

Recollections may differ, and I'm not going to go in search of contemporary statements, but my sense is that the pattern hasn't changed from the very start, with "critics" saying that the president premised the war on specific involvement in 9/11, and the administration clarifying that the War on Terror is more broadly against a network of groups and states and that Iraq was part of it. When information comes out indicating a lack of links, the accusations of the "critics" grow broader. When information comes out indicating some communication, the claims of the "critics" become more specific. When pressed, the media throws up the "impression" screen.

At what level of the process, I wonder, is it necessary for mutually reaffirming delusions to give way to active (and despicable) deception?