Once More, with Feeling

How many times must it be said?

Iraq was not involved with al Qaeda.

Iraq was not involved with al Qaeda.

IRAQ WAS NOT INVOLVED WITH AL QAEDA!

For two years, an unvarying drumbeat of misinformation has poured out of the White House claiming that Iraq and al Qaeda were thick as thieves. Combined with the constant insinuation that Iraq was behind the 9/11 attacks, it was a major selling point in the campaign to scare Americans into supporting the unprovoked invasion of Iraq. This was done over the protests of State Department and CIA analysts pointing out that no such connections have been shown to exist, and the secular Saddam Hussein and the Islamist Osama bin Laden were well known to loathe each other. Since the fall of Baghdad, no evidence of such a link has been discovered.

This minor inconvenience has failed to slow down the propaganda machine in any way. Indeed, as recently as this week, Vice President Cheney claimed that Hussein “had long established ties with al Qaeda.” President Bush dutifully backed him up, saying that the alleged post-invasion presence in Iraq of al Qaeda deputy Abu Musaab al-Zarqawi constitutes “the best evidence of [Iraqi] connection to al Qaeda affiliates and al Qaeda.” The conservative media, especially William Kristol’s Weekly Standard magazine and the NewsMax.com website, have valiantly attempted to flog this particular dead horse, insisting that Hussein and bin Laden were bosom buddies.

Now the 9/11 commission, aided by testimony from senior FBI and CIA analysts, has added its weight to this debunking, having failed to uncover any credible evidence of Iraq-al Qaeda collaboration. While finding that al Qaeda did make overtures to Iraq (among other countries, including Iran, Sudan and Afghanistan) asking for training camps and weapons, those overtures were ignored. The supposed and much-ballyhooed April 2001 meeting in Prague between lead hijacker Mohammed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence agent never happened. Iraq was not involved with 9/11 in any way.

So a central pillar of the Bush Administration’s argument for invading Iraq has been discredited – again. Every time Bush or Cheney insists, in the face of all logic and facts, that Hussein and bin Laden were partners in jihad, they are further exposed as self-deluded liars who are utterly unable to deviate from a proven-false party line. The rationales to justify the war and the chaos which followed have grown fewer and fewer. But don’t expect any realization of that fact in the White House.