One Utah

Via Think Progress. Tony Snow’s op-ed in USA Today earlier this week deserves special attention because it’s a handy catalog of Bush administration lies. Some of these are so big they’ve become part of the landscape and we hardly notice them anymore.

Here’s the title: “Victory in Iraq is vital: President has weakened al-Qaeda, made USA safer from attack.” Wow, three lies right there. OK, let’s debunk Tony Snow.

The war in Iraq, authorized by three-quarters of the Senate, was launched in response to Saddam Hussein’s refusal to abide by 17 United Nations resolutions.

The Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 did not declare war or call for an invasion of Iraq. One member state cannot enforce UN resolutions: the UN Charter prohibits any war unless in self-defense or when it is sanctioned by the UN Security Council.

We never argued that [Saddam Hussein] played a role 9/11; political opponents manufactured the claim to question the president’s integrity.

Democratic Underground has a rundown of 14 statements by President Bush linking Saddam Hussein to the 9/11 attacks, plus more from VP Dick Cheney. The source of many of these quotes is the official White House website. In May 2003, President Bush declared: “The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11, 2001 — and still goes on.”

The most astonishing argument is the claim the United States (or the Bush administration) is responsible for this terror wave. Terrorists are responsible for terror, period.

In April 2006, a National Intelligence Estimate titled “Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States” concluded that the invasion and occupation of Iraq has fueled Islamic radicalism around the globe and has caused the terrorist threat to grow. A majority of Americans believe the war has made the USA more vulnerable to terrorism.

The al-Qaeda of 2001 no longer exists. We’ve killed or captured two-thirds of its senior leadership.

The Al Qaeda of 2007, based in Pakistan, has fully reconstituted. A new threat assessment by the National Counterterrorism Center is titled “Al-Qaida Better Positioned to Strike the West.”

[O]ur nation has become a tougher target. That’s because our government has adopted aggressive measures to gather intelligence, protect Americans and strike enemies before they can strike us.

Bureaucratic incompetence has been a hallmark of the Department of Homeland Security, which was caught unaware by hurricanes in 2005. The 9/11 Commission has given the government failing grades because so little progress has been made in implementing their recommendations. Intelligence gathering has violated the constitutional rights of Americans without uncovering a single plot by Al Qaeda.

More than anything, al-Qaeda wants the United States to leave Iraq and hand victory to the terrorists.

Just the opposite. Top Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri opposes US withdrawal because, as he stated, it “will deprive us of the opportunity to destroy the American forces which we have caught in a historic trap… We ask Allah that they only get out of it after losing 200,000 to 300,000 killed, in order that we give the spillers of blood in Washington and Europe an unforgettable lesson.”

This entry was posted Thursday, July 19th, 2007 at 2:24 pm and is filed under 9/11, George W. Bush, National Politics, Proof Bush Lied, War. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.