Transcript of Steven Hayes, Chuck Todd and Chris Matthews (911 and Iraq)

NewsBusters ^

[april15Bendovr]

Matthews, after a commercial break: "Welcome back to Hardball. More now on our special report on how the Bush administration sold the war in Iraq, with Stephen Hayes, a senior writer for The Weekly Standard, who has reported extensively on the Iraq War, and Chuck Todd, editor-in-chief of The Hotline. What did you two guys make of the Vice President of the United States denying to Gloria Borger that he had made that claim that there was a connection, a meeting in Prague between intelligence officials of the Iraqi government, at the time, and Mohammed Atta, and then saying he never made such a claim?"

Chuck Todd, The Hotline: "It was to me a political fumble. I mean, how do you mess that up?"

Matthews: "But isn't that part of the, isn't that part of the creed, the belief? You hear it from people like Lori Melroy, that a lot of people who support this war with great fervor, who really do believe that there was some kind of Iraqi role in 9/11."

Stephen Hayes, The Weekly Standard: "Look, the Vice President has never claimed an Iraqi role in 9/11. What he said in that clip that you showed-"

Matthews: "The Mohammed Atta meeting in Prague?"

Hayes: "He said that it was pretty well confirmed at a time, December 9, 2001. If you read The New York Times three days later, I believe, December 12, 2001, you have senior intelligence officials throughout the story confirming the meeting-"

Matthews: "Right."

Hayes: "-the alleged meeting. So he wasn't saying anything at that time that the intelligence community didn't also believe-"

Matthews: "But a year later, he denied making that claim."

Hayes: "Well, a year later, it was three-"

Matthews: "Why did he deny making that claim?"

Hayes: "It was three years later. It was a mistake."

Matthews: "Why did he deny making that claim?"

Hayes: "It was a mistake."

Matthews: "You mean he forgot he made the claim?"

Hayes: "Yeah, he probably did. It was a mistake, I mean-"

Matthews: "He forgot making the claim that-"

Hayes: "What do you think he was doing? I mean, do you think he was lying at that point?"

Matthews: "I think he was denying the obvious, according to the video. That's all I can go by."

Hayes: "Well, if you know, if you're the Vice President of the United States and you know that there's video of you making the claim, why would you deny it?"

Matthews: "Okay, let's talk about the politics of this. It's not, it's not just the assertions that have been made and remade. It's the language that's been used, that the war on Iraq was a war on terrorism, that somehow it was payback. That was part of our culture for three years. A lot of people supported this war. In fact, poll data shows, just like poll data now shows they think the President deliberately misled on the intel, poll data before we went to war was that there was, Iraqis were on the planes that attacked us on 9/11. The people thought so, that somehow Iraq had attacked us. That's why we had to attack them."

Todd: "Because the lines were fuzzed during the runup to the war there. I mean, nobody can deny it is technically accurate that this administration never said Iraq was part of 9/11. But it was fuzzy, and it fuzzed everything up."

Matthews: "Was that conflation on purpose?"

Todd: "It certainly appears to be on purpose. It was a political sales job. So, of course, in some form, it was purposeful because they were trying to get, build political support."

Matthews: "Was this a 'Remember the Alamo' kind of war where we went to war in Iraq to get even for something done to us at 9/11?"

Hayes: "No, I don't think it was. I mean, it, look, if it was a conspiracy to conflate 9/11 and the Iraq War-"

Matthews: "It might be a public relations strategy."

Hayes: "Look, if it was a conspiracy, you had Hillary Clinton involved in the conspiracy."

Matthews: "What was she saying about the connection between 9/11 and Iraq?"

Hayes: "She said, October, she said, she mentioned Iraq in the same paragraph as 9/11, which these days apparently is [forbidden]. We're not supposed to do that. Nobody's supposed to do that."

Matthews: "No, only saying that it's payback, that it's somehow connected. What is the connection?"

Hayes: "They didn't say that. They didn't say that."

Matthews: "What did Hillary say?"

Hayes: "Hillary said on the Senate floor, Iraq has harbored and sponsored terrorists, including al-Qaeda. She didn't say that Iraq was behind 9/11, just as the Bush administration didn't say Iraq was behind 9/11. And let me say one other thing. When President Bush was asked that question twice directly, 'Was Iraq behind 9/11?' he twice said we have no evidence to suggest that Iraq somehow directed or was behind 9/11. Condi Rice said it repeatedly. The administration said it repeatedly in the runup to war. What they said was that Iraq changed, or 9/11 changed everything, we have to look at threats in a different, through a different prism after 9/11. The threat that we see from Iraq is unacceptably high based on what we've seen happen in our own country."

Matthews: "And so you deny that the administration made it seem to the American people like the people who attacked us 9/11 are the same people we're going after in Iraq? You deny that?"

Hayes: "No, I think, look-"

Matthews: "Same people?"

Hayes: "I don't think, the President, at one point, said you can't distinguish between Iraq and al-Qaeda in the war on terror. Now, you can take that literally and say you literally cannot distinguish because they were the same. Fine. I think he was making a much more general statement that Iraq is part of the war on terror, which is something he said ever since."

Todd: "I think the better question is would the, did the administration ever want to correct people who said, correct supporters who said, 'Oh, so you're saying Iraq's part of 9/11?' No, they never, they wanted that, they didn't, it was an added benefit-"

Matthews: "Is that a fair assessment?"

Todd: "It was an added benefit that people thought that."

Matthews: "That they never disabused people of the notion, those who did hold it? The polls show people believed that Iraqis were on the planes."

Hayes: "No, I actually disagree with it because of what I-"

Matthews: "You think the President corrected the record?"

Hayes: "-because of what I just, because of what I just said this. He told Newsweek, there's a Newsweek article in which he's quoted as saying we have no evidence that Iraq was behind 9/11."

Todd: "But by saying we have no evidence, that's a trial, that's what a trial lawyer says when they're trying to use circumstantial evidence, when they're trying to get circumstantial evidence."

[t2buckeye]

"Matthews is terrified that his sons are going to be drafted.That is what is fueling this daily diatribe"

If that is true, he's a bigger idiot than I thought. He knows that no draft would come (unless, of course, it was a Dem administration)
Matthews is a Dem pure and simple. He was outraged by Clinton because of the perjury.....but he is incapable of being honest here. He knows that the few viewers he DOES have are liberals..he's not going to alienate his audience.

[Peach]

I'm so glad you reminded me about that book and Saddam going into that state of military readiness before 9/11. I'd read that book, typed notes about the situation that you described, and then had a computer crash and lost those notes.

[Reagan Man]

Haven't been able to watch Matthews much in recent years. He's a big mouth liberal hack.

[Peach]

Salmon Pak is a very important connection that the left would just as soon we all forget about. Thank you for posting that link.

[munin]

Thanks, Matthews get me so opset at times that I watch weel of fortune

[nightowl]

I don't Watch Matthews anymore either. He is a complete nut job and is a card carrying member of the Vast Left Wing Howard Dean Conspiracy and treasonous little B**tard. He is absolutely pathetic. Thank goodness nobody watches him but Babs Strisand.

I absolutely believe that Iraq had something to do with 9/11, not only because of documents discovered after the war, but by the speech Saddam Hussein gave during the summer of 2001. (July 2001, I think)

I've tried to find a copy of that speech. Can someone post it? If so, read it very carefully. Read where he talks about "America's arm was going to be hurt where it is already hurting". (paraphrased) I took that to mean our ECONOMY.

[RAldrich]

"But Iraq was directly resonsible for 9/11? Where did this belief come from? Did the Libs/'Rats/MSM make it up?"

Yes, they made it up that Bush said it, and they kept repeating that over and over again. Just the way they keep repeating that Bush said Iraq was an "imminent threat" - when in fact he said just the opposite, that we couldn't wait until Iraq became an imminent threat.

[manwiththehands]

Thank you for the clarification. That's what I thought too, but for a while there I thought I was losing my mind. :-)

[ClaireSolt]

I have often seen that noone is watching CM, so, in view of his complete obsession with speculation, I have decided to stop waatching after many years. I think he is off the deep end.