Well, I'm sure you've heard by now - the 9-11 committee has come down with their verdict - they see no evidence of any collaboration between al Qaeda and Iraq. Geee, what a surprise!! What seems like common knowledge in my world, seems to have come as a complete surprise to our illustrious leader of our free world...

"The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al Qaeda is because there was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda".

Hey, wow... what a power-statement; that line just made a believer out of me, "W" - what eloquence, what deep truths - why can't the bipartizen, independent 9-11 committee see it all the way you do???

Now, just to add a little bit more of that now VERY expensive flammable petroleum product to the fire, "W" goes on to deny "accusations" that his administration made any attempts to link 9-11 and al Qaeda to Iraq.

How could have I misunderstood him to the extent that I did? I know in my  world - I thought "W" was actually doing a pretty decent job in the war on terror - until he lost his focus, desperately (and I feel unsuccessfully) tried to tie the 9-11 attacks to Iraq, then bombed the hell out of them.

It was at about this time that "W" really started to scare me... but apparently, I once again misunderstood what he was saying - his very justification for the war in Iraq...

"This administration never said that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated between Saddam and al Qaeda," Bush said. "We did say there were numerous contacts between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda."

Holy-moley - wasn't that "W"'s cornerstone justification for the Iraq war!?!

OK - maybe I'm being a bit hard on "W", after all, the commission did say there was indeed some contact between Iraqis and al Qaeda members, but the panel concluded that Iraq never responded to a bin Laden request for help, and said there was no evidence of a "collaborative relationship." between the two.

So, who are you going to believe - The Commission, or Bush????

Ya know, this smacks of yet another example of Bush applying some more of his revisionist history in an attempt to muddle the facts. Remember last July, when he made some boneheaded statement, to the effect that Saddam wasn't cooperating with the intensified UN inspection teams, and that's why the bombs began to fall?

wait... ew,ew,ewww - I found the text of his words, here they are...

"Last July (7/14/03), Bush revised the history of the run-up to the Iraq war, claiming that Saddam Hussein refused to allow weapons inspectors into Iraq in late 2002: "Did Saddam Hussein have a weapons program? And the answer was Absolutely. And we gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in."

In truth, Iraq did  allow U.N. weapons inspectors into the country in November 2002; and the Iraqis were cooperating, to an extent, but the inspectors were withdrawn when war became imminent in March 2003.

It was NPR reporter Mara Liasson (7/17/03) who called it "revisionist history", and what an appropriate term for his comments at the time! It felt to me that, just when the UN was finally getting some backbone with regard to the Iraqi WMD matter (and to give him credit - that's because of Bushs' prodding the UN into some real action), is when Bush decides to alienate 90-percent of the civilized world and go into Iraq with guns-a-blazin'.

Call me paranoid - but I believe that "W" came to realize that the UN was actually beginning to be effective in their inspections, and also realized that even if they did  have WMD's, chances were pretty good that the Iraqis wouldn't be able to get to them, and to use them (because of the UN's intensified inspections), and (I believe, in this particular paranoid vision, that) he had this takover planned well before 9-11, and saw his very justification for bringing this war on begin to fade - so he jumped into action, while he still could.

Paranoid, eh???

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