Exploiting 9/11: Bush lied..... yet Iraq's agony continues

Details

Category: Imperialism & War

Created on Saturday, 10 September 2011 00:45

Written by Mike Ely

After 9/11 Mike Ely researched and wrote a series of articles called "Iraq War: Lies the Government Told Us." 

A steady stream of US government lies claimed that Iraq was allied with the Jihadist bombers who hit New York, and that Iraq's weapons posed the next big threat of major attack on the U.S.

The following essay exposes the lies that tried to connect Saddam Hussein's Iraqi government to the 9/11 attacks.

This series originally appeared in the Revolutionary Worker.

* * * * * * * * * *

NYT, Sept. 27, 2002: 

"Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said today that American intelligence had `bulletproof' evidence of links between al-Qaida and the government of President Saddam Hussein of Iraq."

George Bush said Saddam Hussein is

"a man who loves to link up with al- Qaida, a man who is a true threat to America." -- NYT , Sept. 28, 2002

A poll in October 2002 said that 66 percent of people in the U.S. believed Saddam Hussein was involved in the September 11 attacks (Pew Research Center for People and the Press).

* * * * * * * * * *

Iraq War: Lies the Government Told Us Part 2

Inventing Links and Threats

by Mike Ely

"This conjures up Winston Churchill's famous phrase when he said--don't quote me on this, okay? I don't want to be quoted on this, so don't quote me. He said `sometimes the truth is so precious it must be accompanied by a bodyguard of lies.' -- Donald Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense, Pentagon briefing shortly after 9/11 (Sept. 25, 2001)

"George Bush is the president, he makes the decisions, and, you know, as just one American: He wants me to line up? Just tell me where.... Whatever arguments one may or may not have had with George Bush the Younger before September 11, he is our commander-in-chief, he's the Man now. And we need unity, we need steadiness. I'm not preaching about it. We all know this." --Dan Rather, CBS News anchor

"In Congress, a senior legislative aide...commented, `Some are astute enough to recognize that the alleged imminent WMD [weapons of mass destruction] threat to the U.S. was a pretext. I sometimes have to pinch myself when friends or family ask with incredulity about the lack of WMD, and remind myself that the average person has the idea that there are mountains of the stuff over there, ready to be tripped over.'" -- Seymour M. Hersh, investigative reporter, May 28, 2003

A Knight-Ridder poll conducted in January 2003 reported that 41 percent of Americans believed that Iraq already had a nuclear weapon. Only 24 percent knew the truth: Iraq has no nukes.