Truth - Al Franken [127]
Details of Condi Rice’s planned speech on 9/11 can be found in an April 1, 2004, Washington Post article titled “Top Focus Before 9/11 Wasn’t on Terrorism; Rice Speech Cited Missile Defense.”
President Bush blamed the loss of a million jobs on 9/11 in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania on October 6, 2004. The Bureau of Labor Statistics statistics debunking that claim can be found on-line at stats.bls.gov/mls/mlsimpac.htm.
President George H. W. Bush spoke about Iraq at the “8th Annual Reunion of Our Victory in the Desert,” an event for Gulf War vets, on February 28, 1999.
The State Department website no longer features a transcript of Colin Powell’s February 24, 2001, remarks in Cairo. Fortunately, TheMemoryHole.org has a mirror of the site available at www.thememoryhole.org/war/powell-cairo.htm.
Condi Rice discussed Saddam’s military impotence on CNN’s Late Edition on July 29, 2001.
President Bush warned the nation about Iraq’s connection to al Qaeda in Cincinnati on October 7, 2002. He also discussed this phony assertion on September 25, 2002, in a photo op in the Oval Office.
The results of the New York Times/CBS News poll regarding the nation’s belief that Saddam Hussein had been involved in 9/11 are available on-line at www.nytimes.com/packages/html/politics/20030311_poll/20030311poll_results.html.
The Christian Science Monitor reported on the lack of a perceived al Qaeda–Saddam connection in a March 14, 2003, article titled “The Impact of Bush Linking 9/11 and Iraq.”
Vice President Cheney appeared on Meet the Press on December 9, 2001 (Atta-Prague) and September 14, 2003 (major blow).
The text of President Bush’s letter announcing the war is available on-line at www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030321-5.html.
A GPO search of presidential documents for the year 2003 yielded four examples of the President speaking the words “bin Laden”:
June 24 [with President Musharraf of Pakistan]: “If Usama bin Laden is alive—and the President can comment on that if he cares to—but the people reporting to him, the chief operators, people like Khalid Sheik Mohammed, are no longer a threat to the United States or Pakistan for that matter.”
July 3: “Well, I would have to say obviously there needs to be an education program, because Usama bin Laden is nothing but a killer who has hijacked a great religion.”
September 11: “And it just reminds us of the duty we have got to do. And I say “we,” my administration and all who serve our country, our duty is to protect our fellow citizens from people like bin Laden.”
October 19: “I think that the bin Laden tape should say to everybody the war on terror goes on, that there’s still a danger for free nations and that free nations need to work together more than ever to share intelligence, cut off money, and bring these potential killers or killers to justice.”
By way of comparison, he publicly mentioned his dog Barney five times.
The BBC-leaked intelligence memo was reported:
In the Press Trust (India) on February 5, 2003
In the Gold Coast Bulletin (Australia) on February 6, 2003
In The Scotsman (Scotland) on February 6, 2003
By the Chinese Xinhua Newswire on February 5, 2003
In the Village Voice’s February 18, 2003, issue
In the February 14, 2003, edition of the LA Weekly
By the Associated Press in a wire story that was picked up by Salt Lake City’s Deseret News on February 5, 2003
In the Washington Post on February 8, 2003 (“Blair Acknowledges Flaws in Iraq Dossier”)
And in a cogent op-ed column entitled “Iraq-Terrorist Link Is Flimsy” that appeared in the Cleveland Plain Dealer on February 9, 2003
A transcript of Colin Powell’s remarks to the United Nations is available on-line at www.cnn.com/2003/US/02/05/sprj.irq.powell.transcript.09. Powell confessed to the inaccuracies in those remarks on Meet the Press on May 16, 2004.
The President’s “Mission Accomplished” speech was delivered on May 1, 2003.
The “Case Closed” argument