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Congressional Report: No 9/11

Iraq Link,  July 24, 2003

The Bush Administration fought very hard to keep the report of the joint congressional inquiry into September 11 classified. Before that, the Bush Administration fought extremely hard to keep the report from being written at all. They stonewalled, they made sure witnesses didn't show up for questioning, they "intimidated" witnesses.

Once it was determined that the inquiry would be made public they fought very hard to keep huge portions of it classified. In fact, even now, huge portions remain extremely secret.

During his State of the Union Address and so many times before and after, Bush worked hard to create a connection between al-Qaeda, the September 11 attacks and Saddam Hussein in American's minds.

In fact, during Bush's victory speech on the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, Bush said "The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror. We have removed an ally of al-Qaeda, and cut off a source of terrorist funding." Warblogging wrote about that statement the next day.

We now know why the Bush Administration has fought the release of Congress' report on September 11 so hard. A government official, speaking to United Press International, has said "The report shows there is no link between Iraq and al-Qaeda." UPI has a full report.

When UPI heard that the report showed there was no al-Qaeda-Iraq link, they went straight to the source of the report for confirmation. Former Democratic Senator Max Cleland was a member of the joint congressional committee that wrote the report. Says UPI:

Asked whether he believed the report will reveal that there was no connection between al-Qaida and Iraq, Cleland replied: "I do ... There's no connection, and that's been confirmed by some of (al-Qaida leader Osama) bin Laden's terrorist followers."

The revelation is likely to embarrass the Bush administration, which made links between Saddam's support for bin Laden -- and the attendant possibility that Iraq might supply al-Qaida with weapons of mass destruction -- a major plank of its case for war.

"The administration sold the connection (between Iraq and al-Qaida) to scare the pants off the American people and justify the war," said Cleland. "What you've seen here is the manipulation of intelligence for political ends."

Cleland didn't stop there. He said "The reason this report was delayed for so long — deliberately opposed at first, then slow-walked after it was created — is that the administration wanted to get the war in Iraq in and over before [the report] came out. Had this report come out in January like it should have done, we would have known these things before the war in Iraq, which would not have suited the administration."

The report moves piece by piece through the Bush Administration's supposed "evidence" supporting a link between Iraq and al-Qaeda. It systematically debunks every Bush lie regarding such a link.

It begins with the claim that September 11 ringleader Mohammed Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague in April, 2001. The report states not only that Atta was almost undoubtedly in the United States at the time, but also that the Iraqi agent he supposedly met with is now in US custody — and would surely be interrogated about such a meeting.

Then there's the Administration allegations that a supposed member of al-Qaeda, Abu Mussab al-Zakawi was being "harbored" by Saddam Hussein. The anonymous government official quoted by UPI, however, says "Because someone makes a telephone call from a country, does not mean that the government of that country is complicit in that."

In other words, yes, a probable al-Qaeda member was at one time in Baghdad. There were also definite al-Qaeda members in Munich, in Brooklyn, in Florida, in London. Shall we invade Germany, Britain or America because al-Qaeda members have operated out of those countries? Of course not.

Furthermore, reports UPI, it appears that al-Zakawi may not even be a member of al-Qaeda. Newsweek has reported that German intelligence believes he's the leader of a rival terrorist group, not of al-Qaeda.

There's more, but I urge you to read the UPI article. It becomes incredibly clear why the Bush Administration didn't want Congress' report on September 11 released. It becomes incredibly clear why the Bush Administration stonewalled the September 11 report. It becomes incredibly clear what the Bush Administration had to hide.

You see, there's more in this report than the debunking of Bush's claims that Iraq was somehow linked to September 11.

As Agence France-Presse reports, the congressional report "accuses officials of failing to follow up on suspicions of official Saudi Arabian involvement in the September 11 terrorist attacks."

Newsweek's Michael Isikoff had the scoop on that portion of the report. He reports in the current issue of Newsweek that the 911-page report on September 11 "contains potentially explosive new evidence suggesting that Omar al-Bayoumi, a key associate of two of the hijackers, may have been a Saudi government agent."

Omar al-Bayoumi apparently went straight from a meeting at the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles to a restaurant to meet with Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, two September 11 hijackers. He then took the hijackers back to San Diego, where al-Bayoumi arranged to get them an apartment next to his own and loaned them two months rent.

The public version of the September 11 report will not contain any of this information. The Bush Administration has deleted a 28-page section of the report dealing with Saudi Arabia. "They are protecting a foreign government," Senator Bob Graham told Newsweek. Graham oversaw the congressional inquiry.

Did the Bush Administration block the September 11 inquiry in order to prevent people from knowing that they were attacking the wrong country?

Clearly Bush blocked the report to prevent information debunking Bush's lies about Iraqi links to al-Qaeda from getting out to the public before the invasion and occupation of that nation. Did he also block the report to prevent the American gaze from lying where it belongs — on Saudi Arabia?

If Saudi Arabia was in any way complicit in the September 11 attacks then the American people have a right to know. Certainly we had — and have — a right to know that Iraq had nothing to do with those attacks.

We now have two "confirmed lies" in Bush's State of the Union Address. We know he lied about African uranium, and we know he lied about Iraqi links to terrorism. What else did he lie about?

This nation cannot allow its leaders to lead it into war on the basis of lies, half-truths and innuendo. This nation must demand the information necessary to make important decisions like whether or not to invade a sovereign nation. This nation must not be treated like a mushroom — kept in the dark and fed, well, you know what — by its President.

Bush did not make a mistake regarding intelligence in the lead-up to the Iraq war. He decided he wanted to invade and occupy Iraq, and then he set out to find a reason or reasons. When he couldn't find compelling enough evidence, he invented and twisted it.

And when people called him on his lies, Bush moved quickly to abuse his power to silence them. Paul Krugman in the New York Times wrote about what happened to former American Ambassador Joseph Wilson when he wrote an op/ed in the Times debunking Bush's claims that Iraq had attempted to procure uranium from Iraq, and debunking Bush's claim that he made an honest mistake in making such a claim.

The Bush White House reacted by telling both columnist columnist Robert Novak and TIME Magazine that Wilson was chosen because of his wife's recommendation. They then told these members of the media that Wilson's wife is — wait for it — a CIA operative.

Wilson, of course, refuses to confirm or deny that his wife is a covert CIA operative. But if the White House's claim that she is a CIA operative is true — and we have every reason to believe it is — then the Bush Administration has blown the cover of a covert CIA operative.

Revealing the identity of a CIA operative is a criminal act. It's a felony. It's also, shall we say, unpatriotic. It's an impeachable offense, make no mistake. Bush has put this woman's life in danger by revealing her identity. He has also, of course, ended her career.

Does Bush think that the enemies of the United States don't read American papers? Does he think that Sudanese, Chinese, Saudi and Russian intelligence agencies are not reading, with relish, about CIA operative Wilson? Does he think that Wilson's wife's life will not be in danger the moment she steps off the plane in a hostile or even somewhat hostile nation?

Her career is over, her life in danger. For what? For partisan politics. For Bush's kicks. More than that, to settle a score. Bush has endangered the life and ended the career of a CIA undercover operative in order to settle a political score.

This cannot be tolerated. Bush must be deposed, whether by impeachment or vote. Such dishonesty, abuse of power and war mongering cannot be tolerated in America's chief executive.

Posted by George Paine
From the "Gulf War Redux" Department as of 09:45 AM