It has become standard operating procedure in the Bush Administration that if the facts don’t jibe with the ideology, one just ignores the facts and keeps plowing on straight ahead. Such is the Administration’s response to the 9/11 commission’s discrediting of one of its favorite canards: that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were partners in mayhem, that the invasion of Iraq was part of the War on Terror, and there was no substantive difference between Iraq’s secular dictatorship and al Qaeda’s theocratic terrorism.
“We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States,” the commission reported in direct contradiction to the standard Administration line. “Bin Laden is said to have requested space to establish training camps, as well as assistance in procuring weapons, but Iraq apparently never responded.”
In any other Administration, it would quickly be realized that this particular dog no longer hunts and a proven-wrong sales pitch would be abandoned. But after three years of this Administration, we know better.
Proving himself to be utterly unable to step outside his ideological box, President Bush responded to the report by flatly denying it and just repeating the same thing. “There was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda,” he insisted somewhat peevishly. (In his defense, perhaps he was never told of the commission’s findings. After all, he has bragged on the record that he doesn’t bother to keep up with world events from any independent sources, preferring instead to be spoon-fed by his staff.)
Not content simply to give the impression of being disconnected from reality, Bush went on to deliver a real whopper: “This administration never said that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated between Saddam and al Qaeda.”
Oh, really? That will be a surprise to millions of Americans who were intentionally deceived by White House rhetoric, both specific and general, into thinking just such a connection existed. Vice President Cheney kept mentioning the mythical Prague meeting between lead 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence agent long after it was debunked by American and Czech intelligence. Other officials, including Bush himself, were a little more careful, choosing instead to use buzzwords such as “Saddam,” “September 11” and “al Qaeda” endlessly in the same sentences to plant the impression of a connection without actually saying so. Either way, Bush’s statement comes off as either shamelessly dishonest or utterly idiotic.
Some say that the White House’s staying “on message” no matter what shows resolve and steadfastness. But when you keep on using the same lines long after they’ve repeatedly been exposed as false, that’s not resolve, that’s arrogant stupidity. Whether it’s deliberate or delusional, the thought of such blatant deceit coming from the most powerful people in the world is not a comforting one.
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