The attacks on 9-11 could have been defended by going after bin-Laden and his accomplices. Period. None of whom were in Iraq. That's the latest fact Bush is ignorant of, or just plain lying about.
Here's what he said to reporters Tuesday about the National Intelligence Estimate which reportedly shows that his Iraq occupation is aggravating and enhancing 'jihadist' movements against the U.S. in the country and elsewhere:
"You know, to suggest that if we weren't in Iraq, we would see a rosier scenario with fewer extremists joining the radical movement requires us to ignore 20 years of experience. We weren't in Iraq when we got attacked on September the 11th. We weren't in Iraq, and thousands of fighters were trained in terror camps inside your country, Mr. President. We weren't in Iraq when they first attacked the World Trade Center in 1993. We weren't in Iraq when they bombed the Cole. We weren't in Iraq when they blew up our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. My judgment is, if we weren't in Iraq, they'd find some other excuse, because they have ambitions."
Moreover, he's admitting that because he was unprepared to confront and apprehend those individuals known to be involved in the attacks, they would be free to commit other atrocities with impunity. Twenty years of experience was tossed aside when Condi demoted and retired the nation's top terror analyst, Richard Clarke as he was warning the administration of the risks from the lack of resources and attention to the threat.
The Presidential Daily Breifing he was presented with a month before the 9-11 attacks, entitled, 'Bin-Laden Determined to Strike in the U.S." couldn't have been more clear if it had a road map and address to his home. Yet, Bush did nothing except focus on tax breaks and trade deals for his wealthy benefactors, faith-based initiatives, and his 'education presidency' in the months leading up to the attacks. The closest he got to addressing our nation's defenses was a cynical attempt to restart Star Wars for the benefit of the aerospace industry and the military industry warriors who infected all senior branches of his administration.
After informing reporters of the startling fact that "(they) kill in order to achieve their objectives," Bush again cast bin-Laden as the main measure of the threat. "You know, in the past, Osama bin Laden used Somalia as an excuse for people to join his jihadist movement," he complained.
Well then, get the bastard, Bush! How many distractions will they be allowed to use to obscure from the fact that they haven't caught the perpetrators identified in the congressional authorization to use military force that Bush uses to justify his imperious power-grab? Seventy/eighty percent of our resources that we rely on to defend our nation are in Iraq. If bin-Laden is so much the threat that Bush has to wag him in front of us every time he speaks, then why aren't the bulk of the resources and manpower going to find and kill him?
We have some 20,000 troops in Afghanistan, where Bush complained there were "thousands of fighters were trained in terror camps." They're still being trained there, and are expanding; funded mostly by the resurgence of the opium trade which supplies over 90% of America's heroin. Yet, Bush insists that we need to escalate the 140,000 troops in Iraq. There are almost as many troops defending Baghdad alone, and the green zone of defense which surrounds and defends the defunct Maliki administration, as there are in Afghanistan.
All the while, the occupation of Iraq fuels and aggravates the violent recriminations and retaliations among the myriad of factions and sects, and among those inhabitants who would actively and aggressively resist the propped up regime and it's heavy-handed benefactors. There is no avenue for free expression in Iraq that would facilitate any reasonable control of the new regime by the people who so faithfully were shepherded to the polls (under U.S. occupation) to allow the members of the new regime and Parliament to assume their positions of power. Maliki has shut down and censored the media outlets in the country which expose the chaos and bloodshed and portray the country as the wasteland it has become under American occupation.
In fact, news sources are reporting that the Lincoln Group, the republican-based media organization which the Bush regime directed to pay members of the Iraqi press for 'good news', was awarded yet another contract to 'monitor' Iraqi news outlets for 'positive' reports for Bush to highlight.
There is no way for the puppet regime to do much more than parrot whatever new scheme their American enablers contrive for them. Talibani's broken english when he was interviewed recently was deliberate, as he couldn't possibly find the words to explain away the incompetence and utter contradiction between Bush's insisting to stay in Iraq "as long as he's president" and the reality of the occupation's corrupting effect on any measure of Iraqi sovereignty or self-determination. It's clear that Talibani and his henchmen are nothing if not 'kept' by their domineering hosts.
Yes, Bush. We would see a 'rosier' scenario if you hadn't cut-and-run from the hunt for bin-Laden and his accomplices and diverted the bulk of our military's defenses to create your Iraqi junta. You are either hopelessly ignorant, or dangerously dishonest; or both. It didn't pass notice that you gave a sly reference to only reading the "key judgments" of the National Security Estimate. If that's true, we may have hit on something.
The entire report needs to be read and shared with our representatives in Congress. It's no good for Americans to get whatever snippet that your Director of Intelligenge Negroponte decides to release which spins the information your way. Its not good enough for Americans who've been subject to your earlier lies about WMDs, Saddam and al-Qaeda, and chemical/bio threats from the hapless former dictator of Iraq; from your former, purchased dupe who was worthy enough to your Defense Secretary to visit his palace to shake his hand.
The language from Bush as he defends his administration against the leaked conclusions of the report, which determine his Iraq occupation has worsened the 'terror' threat, is ominously autocratic and transparently manipulative. "We're not going to let lies and propaganda by the enemy dictate how we win this war," he defends.
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