TheAgitator.com
Wolfowitz Slips Us the Tongue
Saturday, September 13th, 2003The Pentagon’s number-two man says he misspoke when he claimed a “great number” of al-Qaida operatives are trying to link up with remnants of Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq.Paul Wolfowitz had said key lieutenants of Osama bin Laden are plotting with Saddam loyalists to kill Americans in Iraq.
The deputy defense secretary made the claim in TV and newspaper interviews on the anniversary of the September eleventh attacks.
Wolfowitz now tells the AP he misspoke because he didn’t anticipate questions about Iraq in interviews about the September eleventh anniversary.
This brings up a few questions:
1) How can you “misspeak” in “several interviews?” One slip of the tongue? Fine. But when you repeat the same falsehood over the course of several interviews, get caught on it, then try to blame it on getting caught of guard, you’re grasping for credibility.
2) In regard to the italicicized portion of the exerpt (which I italicized), is this really part of the administration’s talking points, now? Are they conceding, then, that Iraq had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11? And if so, will they take efforts publicize the absent Saddam-9/11 connection, particularly since administration officials have passively let others make this connection without comment for months, and considering that because of that, 70% of the American public, not to mention more than a few conservative commentators, still believe Saddam was involved in the attacks?
Good points on 1&2. Number two is especially troubling. Even if there was no Iraq-9/11 connection how could he not expect questions about Iraq no matter what the forum? Also, even if he wasn’t expecting these questions shouldn’t he be prepared to answer correctly any questions that might arise. Isn’t Iraq the bulk of what he is working on right now? Shouldn’t he know more than almost anyone about the current conditions there?
Very troubling!
Is there no truth to this article?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2003%2F04%2F27%2Fwalq27.xml
I remember that getting reported on near the end of the “official war”, but it didn’t have the legs to stay in the media. That said, I would put my money down that they were fraudulent docs or something of the sort. Otherwise, the admin. would have been all over it, and would have had it in our face 24/7. But, say they are official docs, it was a meeting in 1998, which implies a possibility of collusion, but stops short of difinitely linking Iraq to 9/11. So to answer your question, yes there could be truth to it, but it’s far from proof…
I am among the 30% of Americans that DON’T think Saddam was involved in 9-11-01, yet I still believe we were right in waging war against him. The comments by Wolfowitz are troubling, though. I’m becoming increasingly wary of attempts to justify the war with a Saddam-9/11 link.
The sad thing is, we didn’t even need such a link to go after Saddam. He still had to go, if for no other reason than his repeated violations of several UN resolutions. The UN was unwilling to back-up its resolutions with the necessary action, so we were forced to do it ourselves. That’s always been reason enough for me.
If I’m not mistaken, the U.S. has ignored U.N. “resolutions” in the past. Does Roger think France would be justified in attacking us for violating a U.N. resolution?
Mark -
Truthfully, France may be able to build up a good case for attacking us.
I sincerely hope they do. That would be FAR easier than Iraq. A few Boy Scout troops could probably take France with nothing more than their Archery merit badges.
When a resolution prescribes a military solution, if necessary, to a problem, and repeated violations of said resolution occur, then it is reasonable to expect that military action will occur. We simply enforced the resolutions that the UN was bold enough to agree upon, yet too wimpy to enforce.
Although the worthless UN is highly proficient when it comes to writing resolutions, I highly doubt that they will be bold enough to draft some type of Resolution against us that carries a military strike as a penalty for non-compliance. The little guy NEVER starts a fight with the biggest, strongest guy in the bar. That is generally a bad idea, unless you really like pain and death.