Posted on 05/28/2004 3:14:19 PM PDT by martinaricejr
FYI!
But another passage of the same report has gone strangely unnoticed. Two paragraphs before, also on page 7, is this: "If Iraq's Saddam Hussein decide[s] to use terrorists to attack the continental United States [he] would likely turn to bin Laden's al Qaeda. Al Qaeda is among the Islamic groups recruiting increasingly skilled professionals," including "Iraqi chemical weapons experts and others capable of helping to develop WMD. Al Qaeda poses the most serious terrorist threat to U.S. security interests, for al Qaeda's well-trained terrorists are engaged in a terrorist jihad against U.S. interests worldwide."
I hope this is weighed carefully, President Bush has a lot more work to do.
I am hoping this is told more and more often...until the media cannot ignore it.
Concise, accurate, pithy. Too bad libs would only read the first paragraph!
Thanks for the ping. I think that this connect-the-dots is going to ne the final nail,that allows me to turn a Dem leaning person. :-)
I'd like to keep these quotes for "ammunition" next time some lib poster starts screeching the "Bush lied about Al-Queda and Iraq" line.
The theory that there was substantial and well-documented collaboration between al-Qaeda and Iraq (not just the occasional meeting, which means nothing) requires an answer to one key question:
"Why has Pres. Bush not revealed the evidence and given his explicit backing to this theory?"
If the theory is correct, Pres. Bush must have some very good reason for not giving the connection his imprimatur, since on its face he would greatly benefit politically from doing so.
[Of course, it's possible that the theory is false, or at least unproven, in which case there's nothing to explain with regard to the Bush administration's lack of forthrightness on the issue. But if the theory is true, then the position of the Bush administration is a very interesting question.]
Bump
Well the obvious reason would be
that it would be much more politically opportune
to reveal all this just before the election.
This is what Loftus maintains
but I have my doubts
we have heard such stuff before
that there would be revelations
just before the invasion
(the meetings with Atta, etc).
Too bad this information will not be getting the headlines that have been dominated by the prison scandal. It seems to contradict the DNC party line.
As Ann Coulter so pithily put it:
The beauty of being a liberal is that history always begins this morning. Every day liberals can create a new narrative that destroys the past as it occurred. We have always been at war with Eastasia.
"Why has Pres. Bush not revealed the evidence and given his explicit backing to this theory?"
Please see the following post for a rather plausible response to your question:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1143347/posts?page=72#72
That certainly explains Jamie Gorelick's seat on the 9-11 Commission. Selective memory loss allows her and fellow commissioners to formulate hostile question in an attempt to shift the blame. This tactic of rewriting history is the "new" liberal version of 9-11/
Never forget.
The careful balancing act that either of these theories implies risks not just Pres. Bush's re-election, but the popular base of support for the war -- both the war on Iraq and the Bush strategy for the war on al-Qaeda.
Why would Pres. Bush have missed an opportunity to galvanize public support for the war on Iraq by stating publicly the reasons which he ostensibly already knows? This isn't just a question of re-election strategy: the successful prosecution of the war is at risk precisely because much of the U.S. public is uncertain why we are at war with Iraq and thinks it may be needless.
The tactic of intentionally waiting until just before the election would be likely to backfire. It will be attributed to political opportunism by much of the public, and many people who would have believed it earlier simply won't believe it at that point. Combine that with the fact that there appear to be moles in the government who are willing to publish "tell-all" books to the detriment of the administration, and there's a good chance that the tactic wouldn't even be kept secret.
Now, maybe one of these theories really is right. If so, it's a poor tactical choice on the part of the Bush administration.
I'm more inclined to think that neither of these theories is the reason. Either there's some other reason that's keeping Pres. Bush from revealing the Iraq-al Qaeda connection, or else the connection is minimal and there's not much to reveal.
After all, both raw intelligence and its interpretation are full of errors and uncertainties, and even disinformation. The President hears "There is a connection" from one advisor, "There's not a connection" from another advisor, and "We don't know" from a third advisor.
Maybe Pres. Bush is, very reasonably, unwilling to go out on a limb in such a situation.
I think you are right.
They don't even know who planned 09-11-01.
Ping
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