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tator: A point you bring up troubles me. The President and his staff words of are expressed in ways that paint mental pictures that often don't match the exact wording. For example, the Wash Times piece ties the war in Iraq to the crashes on 9/11. But there is a subtlety. We are in Iraq now to fight terrorism in their territory, but the picture being painted is that somehow Iraq was involved in 9/11. That debate is very nebulous and that debate will forever be ongoing. But the fact remains without directly saying it, he ties Iraq to involvement in 9/11 through the use of words that paint the mental picture. However as long as the hard connect is never made, then the deniablility is there. That's troubling.

Reagan used words to paint pictures too. But his pictures were rooted in hard fact. Not so with this administration. They've almost got the speak of "depends on what the meaning of the word is is" to an art.

".....as long as the hard connect is never made....."

Joes, the connection is there for me in a very personal way. During the last three years of the Clinton administration my son had seven deployments to Turkey (Northern no-fly zone) and Saudi Arabia (Southern no-fly zone). These flights were to keep Saddam under control. A very scary time...especially when Clinton launched his four day war,Desert Fox.

Shortly after 9/11, Osama Bin Laden said one of his "reasons" for the attack was to get the infidels (US) out of Saudi Arabia because it is home to the Muslim holy place of Mecca. Very soon thereafter we removed our base from Saudi and prepared to stop the nonsense once and for all in Iraq.

Saddam painted a few pictures as well.

The activities carried on by Saddam at Salman Pak are indeed "rooted in hard fact".

Iraq told UN inspectors that Salman Pak was an anti-terror training camp for Iraqi special forces. However, two defectors from Iraqi intelligence stated that they had worked for several years at the secret Iraqi government camp, which had trained Islamic terrorists in rotations of five or six months since 1995. Training activities including simulated hijackings carried out in an airplane fuselage [said to be a Boeing 707] at the camp. The camp is divided into distinct sections. On one side of the camp young, Iraqis who were members of Fedayeen Saddam are trained in espionage, assassination techniques and sabotage. The Islamic militants trained on the other side of the camp, in an area separated by a small lake, trees and barbed wire. The militants reportedly spent time training, usually in groups of five or six, around the fuselage of the airplane. There were rarely more than 40 or 50 Islamic radicals in the camp at one time.

For example, the Wash Times piece ties the war in Iraq to the crashes on 9/11. But there is a subtlety. We are in Iraq now to fight terrorism in their territory, but the picture being painted is that somehow Iraq was involved in 9/11. That debate is very nebulous and that debate will forever be ongoing. But the fact remains without directly saying it, he ties Iraq to involvement in 9/11 through the use of words that paint the mental picture. However as long as the hard connect is never made, then the deniablility is there. That's troubling.

NEXUS, NEXUS, NEXUS. The object was to avoid a nexus between the terrorists and rogue governments that could provide them with weapons of mass destruction such as poisons, chemicals, and nuclear.

The only people directly involved in the 9/11 attacks died inside of the airplanes.

Nobody ever implied that Iraq was directly involved in the 9/11 attack.

Exactly right. His ties of 9/11 and Iraq are off base. Unfortunately most Americans are to naive or stupid not to realize this is a false connection. It has been proven that Iraq was not behind these attacks. Why not attack all Arab countries using this logic.

Anybody who had their ears open last night would have not thought he was blaming Iraq for 9/11. He made it very clear that Iraq is part of the war on terror, and that is why he mentioned Sept. 11, saying they would be on our shores if they aren't there.

He did not come even remotely close to blaming Iraq for 9/11, and these articles being written are utterly silly.