"The administration does not want the victims of Sept. 11 interfering with its foreign policy," says Peter M. Leitner, director of the Washington Center for Peace and Justice (WCPJ). Leitner says the Bush administration may be concerned that if other victims of the Sept. 11 attacks also filed lawsuits and won civil-damage awards it would reduce Iraqi resources that the administration wants to use to rebuild the country. Leitner and others say this explains Bush's reticence at this time to report the convincing evidence linking Saddam and al-Qaeda that has been collected by U.S. investigators and private organizations seeking damages. "The [Bush] administration is intentionally changing the topic," claims Leitner, and sidestepping the issue that "Iraq has been in a proxy war against the U.S. for years and has used al-Qaeda in that war against the United States."
Works for me.
Very interesting. Entirely possible. I still think it'd be in his best interests to report the connection, but this very well may be the reason he's not. Without this explaination, in other words, I'm left to wonder about his political "strategery" abilities.
Damn!
That is the best reason I've heard yet. So you're saying that the threat of lawsuits against the U.S. is preferable to Bush exposing to not only the U.S. - but the rest of the world that we had justification for the war in Iraq?
One could reason that he wasn't responsible for what happened then, because he wasn't president. I'm still not totally convinced that on a cost benefit analysis that it wouldn't be preferable to expose this.
What say you?
Why doesn't Congress pass a bill shielding Iraq from personal damage lawsuits of the kind described by Mr. Leitner? We're letting the greed of trial lawyers, and their potential clients, from allowing the truth to be known.
Don't sue IRAQ, sue SADAAM! He's got plenty of money stashed away.
The Link Between Iraq and Al-Qaeda
Going out to buy a copy of today's WSJ now! Somebody ping Hugh!