Amy Goodman (Democarcy Now!): Interview with LTC (ret) Karen Kwiatkowski

[Jack Rabbit]

From Democracy Now!
Broadcast Wednesday June 29

Fmr. Pentagon Insider Blasts Bush's Iraq Speech and Repeated References to 9/11
By Amy Goodman

AMY GOODMAN: It’s great to have you with us. Can you talk about first your reaction to President Bush's address last night at Fort Bragg?

LT. COL. KAREN KWIATKOWSKI: Well, a very frightening speech. Very frightening if any of it had been true. So I was actually curious as to who he was addressing this speech to. I mean, there were so many things in there that just don't match with reality, whether it's the American strategy, why we're in Iraq, which was supposedly why he gave this address, to explain to the American people why this is worth it, and yet he didn't speak about any of those reasons.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk from your own experience in the Pentagon in one of the -- and talk about the office you worked in about how 9/11 was connected to the invasion of Iraq, how they linked it?

LT. COL. KAREN KWIATKOWSKI: Well, in real terms, in truthful, honest terms, there was no connection, and that was well known by the intelligence community, and the administration was advised repeatedly that there was no connection between 9/11 and anything that Saddam Hussein was doing and anything the people in Iraq were doing. So when I worked in the Pentagon, of course, and what the American people saw was repeated attempts by the administration and several of the media outlets that the administration favors and uses. Mainstream media, unfortunately, promulgated this idea prior to the invasion that 9/11 was somehow connected to Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi people.

Later, after we invaded after we searched for weapons of mass destruction, after we did all these other things and searched for terrorists, we searched for bin Laden's people, there weren’t any in Iraq until after we got there, after we destroyed the security infrastructure and took down the Baath Party system. Then you do have terrorists in Iraq, but only afterwards. So it was very disingenuous for George Bush to, at this late date after so much is known, to make this connection to suggest this 9/11 connection and to suggest that this is about American homeland security. This thing in Iraq has nothing to do with homeland security, unless it's to make it worse.

Read more, watch or listen.

[Mark Williams]

1. Video of Amy Goodman on CNN

Amy Goodman was on CNN last night. I have posted the video of her interview.

Amy Goodman Video Link

[AtTheEndOfTheDay]

2. Thanks for the link.

Good showing by Amy.