The Other Bush Lie

As calls mount for a full-scale investigation into the Bush administration's manipulation of intelligence on Iraq's nonexistent nuclear and chemical weapons program, let's hope that the other causus belli on which the administration based its war -- the alleged link between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein -- also gets the scrutiny it deserves.

While the link was hyped less by administration officials than by right-wing idealogues and the conservative press, an organized campaign was nonetheless launched to persuade the American public that such a connection was real -- and represented a mortal threat.

A hint of such orchestration came in a June interview between "Meet the Press" host Tim Russert and former Gen. Wesley Clark, as publicized by the press watchdog Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR):

Clark: "There was a concerted effort during the fall of 2001, starting immediately after 9/11 to pin 9/11 and the terrorism problem on Saddam Hussein." Russert: "By who? Who did that?" Clark: "Well, it came from the White House, it came from people around the White House. It came from all over. I got a call on 9/11. I was on CNN, and I got a call at my home saying, 'You got to say this is connected. This is state-sponsored terrorism. This has to be connected to Saddam Hussein.' I said, 'But -- I'm willing to say it -- but what's your evidence?' And I never got any evidence."

Clark has never said who called him, but we can identify others who were asserting the same connection both on television and in print at the same time.

Without explicitly citing Iraq, Defense Policy Board (DPB) chair Richard Perle suggested in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks that there had to be a state sponsor behind them. "This could not have been done without help of one or more governments," he told The Washington Post. "Someone taught these suicide bombers how to fly large airplanes. I don't think that can be done without the assistance of large governments. You don't walk in off the street and learn how to fly a Boeing 767."

Ex-CIA chief James Woolsey, Jr. was more direct. Speaking with Peter Jennings, he suggested Iraq was behind the 1993 bombing of the Trade Center and continued: "[I]t's not impossible that terrorist groups could work together with the government, that ... the Iraqi government has been quite closely involved with a number of Sunni terrorist groups and ... and on some matters has had direct contact with bin Laden."

He repeated that claim in an interview with Wolf Blitzer. Appearing with the State Department's former counterterrorism chief, Larry Johnson, Woolsey said, "My suspicion -- it's no more than that at this point -- is that there could be some government action involved together with bin Laden or a major terrorist group. And one strong suspect there I think would be the government of Iraq." (Johnson thought this highly unlikely. "Saddam is a lot of things," he said, "but he's not crazy.")

Later that evening, William Kristol of the Weekly Standard and chairman of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) echoed Woolsey in a NPR interview: "I think Iraq is, actually, the big, unspoken sort of elephant in the room today. There's a fair amount of evidence that Iraq has had very close associations with Osama bin Laden in the past, a lot of evidence that it had associations with the previous effort to destroy the World Trade Center."

It remains unclear whether Woolsey, Perle, Kristol and the mystery person who tried to coach Clark really believed there was a connection, or whether they were trying to plant the idea in the public's mind in order to set the stage for war with Iraq. But recently revealed discussions within the administration now suggest the deception may have been intentional.