So, why are our western leaders lying to us? Why tell us AQ is everywhere? What are the goals of the war on terror? Is it just a label to slap on very questionable stuff that you couldn't possibly justify in any other way? questions questions..
Does the article show if there were Austrians in Iraq? A lack of mention isn't proof. Okay, my mistake. I later mistated my position. My FIRST mention was asking why we have a "global" war on terror when we never wrapped up the job against our agressors in Afghanistan. Your administration painted a VERY different story justifying the war. See my post below that I pulled from rhesters post. Still no link that AQ was operating in Iraq? It is relevant because that is the whole point of this thread layed out in the article. His point is anytime the word terrorist pops up it automatically results in the words AQ soon thereafter. That was very much alive in the justification for the Iraq war and it happened in the London bombings. THAT is the point.
1) "My answer is bring 'em on." —President George W. Bush, challenging militants attacking U.S. forces in Iraq, July 2, 2003 2) "I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency." --Vice President Dick Cheney, on the Iraq insurgency, June 20, 2005 3) "As you know, you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time." —Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, responding to a U.S. soldier serving in Iraq who asked him why troops had to dig through scrap metal to armor vehicles, Dec. 8, 2004 4) "My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators." –Vice President Dick Cheney, "Meet the Press," March 16, 2003 5) "F**k Saddam, we're taking him out." –President Bush to three U.S. Senators in March 2002, a full year before the Iraq invasion -Time Magazine actually didn’t report the quote exactly that way. Apparently not to offend readers who admire Bush’s moral clarity, Time printed the quote as “F--- Saddam. We’re taking him out.”Bush offered his pithy judgment after sticking his head in the door of a White House meeting between National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and three senators who had been discussing strategies for dealing with Iraq through the United Nations. The senators laughed uncomfortably at Bush’s remark, Time reported. [Time story posted March 23, 2003] 6) "Ladies and gentlemen, these are not assertions. These are facts, corroborated by many sources, some of them sources of the intelligence services of other countries." –Secretary of State Colin Powell, testifying about Iraq's chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons capabilities before the United Nations Security Council, Feb. 5, 2003 7) "Freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things." –Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on looting in Iraq after the U.S. invasion, adding "stuff happens," April 11, 2003 8) "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed." –President Bush, standing under a "Mission Accomplished" banner on the USS Lincoln aircraft carrier, May 2, 2003 9) "It's hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself and to secure the surrender of Saddam’s security forces and his army. Hard to imagine." –Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, testifying before the House Budget Committee prior to the Iraq war, Feb. 27, 2003 10) "From a marketing point of view, you don't roll out new products in August." --White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, on why the Bush administration waited until after Labor Day to try to sell the American people on war against Iraq, "New York Times" interview, Sept. 7, 2002 11) "We found the weapons of mass destruction." –President Bush, in an interview with Polish television, May 29, 2003 12) "Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere!" —President Bush, joking about his administration's failure to find WMDs in Iraq as he narrated a comic slideshow during the Radio & TV Correspondents' Association dinner, March 25, 2004 13) "We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat." –Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, when asked about weapons of mass destruction in an ABC News interview, March 30, 2003 14) "British intelligence has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production." –President Bush, 2003 State of the Union Address 15) "Already, the Kay Report identified dozens of weapons of mass destruction-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations." –President Bush, 2004 State of the Union Address 16) "It's a slam-dunk case!" –CIA Director George Tenet, discussing WMD and the case for war during a meeting in the Oval Office, Dec. 21, 2002 17) "I think the burden is on those people who think he didn't have weapons of mass destruction to tell the world where they are." –White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, July 9, 2003 18) "The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy, we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on, which was weapons of mass destruction, as the core reason." --Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, "Vanity Fair" interview, May 28, 2003 19) "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." –National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, on Iraq's nuclear capabilities and the Bush administration's case for war, Sept. 8, 2002 20) "Had we to do it over again, we would look at the consequences of catastrophic success, being so successful so fast that an enemy that should have surrendered or been done in escaped and lived to fight another day." —President Bush, telling Time magazine that he underestimated the Iraqi resistance, Aug. 2004 21) "We know he's been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons, and we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." –Vice President Dick Cheney, "Meet The Press" March 16, 2003 22) "I don't know anybody that I can think of who has contended that the Iraqis had nuclear weapons." –Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, June 24, 2003 23) "In Iraq, a ruthless dictator cultivated weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them. He gave support to terrorists, had an established relationship with al Qaeda, and his regime is no more." –Vice President Dick Cheney, Nov. 7, 2003 24) "I am not going to give you a number for it because it's not my business to do intelligent work." --Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, asked to estimate the number of Iraqi insurgents while testifying before Congress, Feb. 16, 2005 25) "Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties." —President Bush, discussing the Iraq war with Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson, after Robertson told him he should prepare the American people for casualties Source
So Hayes, rhester provides us the perfect quote above as it relates to the article. It was evident to anybody in the world that the Bush administration linked 9/11 to Iraq and thereby helping to justify the war. It isn't central to my point, but you have yet to demonstrate that Iraq "had an established relationship w/ AQ." You say it had been clearly outlined in previous threads. IIRC, all those threads were hotly debated and an AQ link was never CLEARLY demonstrated, IMO. Just some tenuous peripheral link to some spy was the best link I remember. That isn't proof of an "established relationship." My point of bringing this up, again, is simply to support the author of the article that AQ is used for justification for anything that smells like terrorism in the world. rhester's quote makes that point pretty clear with regards to Iraq. EDIT: I went back and edited my previous post too because it was too long and detracted from the point. The point is not whether we should have attacked Iraq. The point is whether we used AQ as justification to attack iraq.
OK. Then we don't have a problem. Yes, the linkage between Iraq and AQ before the intervention was tenuous at best. If that is the point then I just misunderstood because that's been obvious for awhile and is hardly worth rehashing.
Well, the AQ Myth is the point of the thread. Glad we don't need to rehash cause that doesn't interest me at all at this point. There is nothing new to be said now. We've all been over it 1,000x.
