Dude, Where's My Country_ - Michael Moore [24]
W.A.B.O.B.S!
I say Osama, you say Usama . . . and Rumsfeld just says the magic word “Saddam” and before you know it, everyone else was saying it, too! Ret. Gen. Wesley Clark has said that he received phone calls on September 11 and in the weeks after from people at “think tanks” and from people within the White House telling him to use his position as a pundit for CNN to “connect” September 11 to Saddam Hussein. He said he’d do it if someone could show him the proof. No one could.
During the buildup to war in the fall of 2002, Bush and members of his administration kept repeating the claim, keeping it uncluttered by specifics (also known as “facts”) so it stayed nice and simple and easy to remember. Bush circled the country at campaign stops for Republican congressional candidates, inseminating the minds of the American people with the bogus Saddam/Osama connection on a continuous loop. Check out just one week’s worth of serial lying:
“This [Hussein] is a person who can’t stand America. This is a person who has had contacts with al Qaeda.”
—George W. Bush, Alamogordo, New Mexico, October 28, 2002
“He’s a threat to America and he’s a threat to our friends. He’s even more of a threat now that we’ve learned that he’s anxious to have, once again, to develop a nuclear weapon. He’s got connections with al Qaeda.”
—George W. Bush, Denver, Colorado, October 28, 2002
“This is a man who cannot stand what we stand for. He hates the fact, like al Qaeda does, that we love freedom. See, they can’t stand that. This is a guy who has had connections with these shadowy terrorist networks.”
—George W. Bush, Aberdeen, South Dakota, October 31, 2002
“That’s the nature of this man. We know he’s got ties with al Qaeda.”
— George W. Bush, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, November 1, 2002
“We know that he’s had connections with al Qaeda.”
—George W. Bush, Tampa, Florida, November 2, 2002
“This is a man who has had contacts with al Qaeda. This is a man who poses a serious threat in many forms, but catch this form: He’s the kind of guy that would love nothing more than to train terrorists and provide arms to terrorists so they could attack his worst enemy and leave no fingerprints. This guy is a threat to the world.”
—George W. Bush, St. Paul, Minnesota, November 3, 2002
“This is a man who can’t stand America and what we believe in. This is a man who hates some of our closest allies. This is a man who has had al Qaeda connections.”
—George W. Bush, St. Louis, Missouri, November 4, 2002
“This is the kind of guy we’re dealing with. This is a man who hates America, he hates our friends, he can’t stand what we believe in. He’s had contacts with al Qaeda.”
—George W. Bush, Bentonville, Arkansas, November 4, 2002
“This is a man who cannot stand America, he cannot stand what we stand for, he can’t stand some of our closest friends and allies. This is a man who has got connections with al Qaeda.”
—George W. Bush, Dallas, Texas, November 4, 2002
Just in case we missed the point, Bush continued to hammer it home in his State of the Union address on January 28, 2003: “Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications, and statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of al Qaeda,” Bush insisted.
Immediately following the address, a CBS online poll found that support for U.S. military action in Iraq increased.
A week later, on February 5, Bush’s claims were echoed by Secretary of State Colin Powell in a lengthy address to the United Nations Security Council. After detailing what Powell said were Iraq’s numerous failures to comply with weapons inspections, he moved on to the Saddam/Osama connection: “But what I want to bring to your attention today is the potentially much more sinister nexus between Iraq and the al Qaeda network, a nexus that combines classic terrorist organizations and modern methods of murder.”
But the meat of the administration’s “evidence” had already begun to turn rancid. During