Here's the new fallback position. OK, they'll admit when called on it, Bush didn't say that Saddam was an imminent threat, but, well, he implied it. Yes, somehow, he managed to imply something that he explicitly denied, in fact using the denial as part of his argument for removing Saddam.

Of course, he implied nothing of the kind, it's just that these morons are, in retrospect, inferring it, because it allows them to pretend that this pretext for war (which never existed) has been invalidated by the failure (to date, it should be noted) to come up with ready-to-use WMD.

And of course, even in the midst of admitting that he was mistaken about this, this columnist continues another canard.

Seventy percent of the American people are under the impression that Saddam Hussein played a principal role in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, although there is no credible evidence to support that. Bush has admitted that Hussein was not directly involved in the attacks.

This is an interesting statement. If that many people are under that impression, whose fault is that? A search for any administration claims that Saddam played any role, let alone a principal one, will be as fruitless as the search for administration claims that the threat was imminent. The deployment of the word "admitted" implies that Bush or administration officials had previously made such a claim, which is, of course, not true.

My use of the word "admitted" a couple paragraphs up is valid--the columnist has been forced to admit that his previous claim was wrong.

But his use of it is mendacious. The appropriate word here would be "claimed," or "stated," or "asserted." If the people have been misled about Saddam's involvement about September 11, Mr. Brazaitis should be taking his colleagues in the press to task--they're the ones who are supposed to be informing the public--rather than trying to pin it on the Evil Bush administration.

But then, apparently, based on this and multiple other episodes, having an informed public is the furthest thing from their minds.

Bravo!

It's funny that apparently some Lefty cartoonists think that that's exploitable for their side. After attempting for months on end to point out that Bush had claimed the exact opposite.

70% of Americans believe Saddam was connected to 9/11 because the American people have more common sense than the people in CIA who are supposed to be protecting us. Why wouldn't you suspect that the government of a country in a de facto state of war with the U.S. for 11 years was behind a massive terrorist attack?

What's the percentage of people who believe that OJ did it? Since a jury of his peers did not find, beyond a reasonable doubt, that he had done so, which is more likely to be accurate: the people, or the jurors?

That's not really a good example, because it would be possible to think that OJ probably did it, and still think that the evidence was insufficient to prove it beyond the shadow of a doubt (which was, I believe, the legal standard applied there). I would have voted to convict myself, based on my understanding of the facts, but the fact that someone else didn't doesn't necessarily mean that they believe him innocent.

Why are you sucking Bush's d**k? The guy lied to get us in Iraq, never bothered to think about the consequences and now soldiers are stuck there. Meanwhile, you spend time splitting hairs as part of the distraction field in order to protect an administration that is robbing the future of America blind.

Sad.

If Saddam was linked to 9/11, where is the evidence? There is none.

Mr. Cheney Ticker, if you really have any interest in evidence, you could start by reading Laurie Mylroie's two books, her numerous opinion pieces for WSJ and NRO, then move on to similar pieces by R. James Woolsey and Mansoor Ijaz, numerous articles by Jeff Goldberg and Stephen Hayes, and Edward J. Epstein's web site. Anyone who spends any time at all on this question can easily find substantial quantities of open-source evidence that tend to establish that the Islamist terror directed at the U.S. during the 1990s and leading up to 9/11, including the events of 9/11 itself, were sponsored by Saddam's Iraq.

The scandal here is that CIA has no interest in following up on these leads, just as they had no interest in the 1970s and 1980s on following up on evidence that suggested that the Soviet Bloc was supporting leftist terror in the West (PLO, Red Brigades, etc.). It's happened before, and it's happening now.

The fair-minded Dan Drezner called a debate on this:

"It is a complete fabrication that the Bush administration argued in the runup to the war that there was an imminent threat from Iraq."

It seems pretty clear. Bush was saying the US couldnt wait until Iraq was recognized as an imminent threat with real WMD, and that a Baathist regime with potential WMD was effectively a imminent threat.

Otherwise why the rush?

(Unfortunately, every hint of WMD seems to have been ideologically bent intelligence or, worse, complete BS out of the INC and the New York Times real scandel, Judy Miller).

(And no, the mere existence of scientists and one vial of common soil bateria does not an active WMD program make)

> If the people have been misled about Saddam's
> involvement about September 11, Mr. Brazaitis
> should be taking his colleagues in the press to
> task--they're the ones who are supposed to be
> informing the public--rather than trying to pin
> it on the Evil Bush administration.

Kind of funny that the press, "liberal bias" all all, now is getting blamed on these pages for not being sceptical *enough* about Saddam's involvement about 9/11!
---
Actually, some _conservative_ mags such as THE WEEKLY STANDARD have been playing the Saddam/9-11 card for all its worth, though. They have been pursuing far-fetched conspiracy scenarios for two years now (Iraq & the anthrax attacks, Mohammed Atta meets Saddam's agents in the Czech Republic, Saddam was involved in the 1993 attack etc.)

MARCU$

That last one isn't so "far-fetched," Marcus.

And whether Saddam was directly involved with 911 (the jury remains out), he was definitely a state sponsor of terrorism (particularly in Israel).

Deroy Murdock has the goods.

> 70% of Americans believe Saddam was connected to 9/11 because the American people have more common sense than the people in CIA who are supposed to be protecting us.

And more common sense than George Bush then too (not that that's saying much) since he also now says that there is no evidence of a connection.

> far-fetched conspiracy scenarios

Indeed. The Iraq-and-Saudi-Arabia-are-allies theory is still good for a chuckle even now.

As I recall, the famous %70 actually believed Iraqi citizens were actual hijackers - you have to be using an FBI as well as CIA-proof tinfoil hat to believe that (or simply geographically ignorant - sad fact of life over here). I think the numbers for "Saddam did it" are below %50 (at least as of the last NYT poll)

Just so's you know: According to journalism's own rules, the word "claimed" is not appropriate, since, in ordinary usage, it carries an implication that the claim is false.

Not that you don't see them using the word all over the place anyway, but there you are.