During a long, wandering answer about his administration’s rationale for the Iraq War during his press conference today, President Bush asserted that “nobody’s ever suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attacks.”
Here’s the video:
That’s technically true — but distorts the truth. In fact, his administration has repeatedly asserted the falsehood that Saddam was somehow involved with the 9/11 attacks.
That’s undeniable. As Josh noted back in November, Vice President Cheney did suggest on numerous occasions, most notably on Meet the Press in September 2002, that Iraq might have been involved in the attacks:
VICE PRES. CHENEY: I’m not here today to make a specific allegation that Iraq was somehow responsible for 9/11. I can’t say that. On the other hand, since we did that interview, new information has come to light. And we spent time looking at that relationship between Iraq, on the one hand, and the al-Qaeda organization on the other. And there has been reporting that suggests that there have been a number of contacts over the years. We’ve seen in connection with the hijackers, of course, Mohamed Atta, who was the lead hijacker, did apparently travel to Prague on a number of occasions. And on at least one occasion, we have reporting that places him in Prague with a senior Iraqi intelligence official a few months before the attack on the World Trade Center. The debates about, you know, was he there or wasn’t he there, again, it’s the intelligence business.
Mr. RUSSERT: What does the CIA say about that? Is it credible?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: It’s credible. But, you know, I think a way to put it would be it’s unconfirmed at this point. We’ve got…
