Think Again: No Link? Who Knew? -- by Eric Alterman --June 17, 2004

[radfringe]

Think Again: No Link? Who Knew?
http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=92284
by Eric Alterman --June 17, 2004
"You can't distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror." - President George W. Bush, September 2002

The 9/11 Commission informed us on Wednesday morning "no credible evidence" existed of a link between Iraq and al Qaeda in attacks against the United States. Many Americans who have not been paying close attention will be surprised to hear this. After all, it comes just two days after Vice President Dick Cheney said Saddam Hussein had "long-established ties" with al Qaeda, an assertion that the Associated Press, with a degree of reticence that ended up lending credence to a lie, explained, "has been repeatedly challenged by some policy experts and lawmakers."

Let us take a moment, however, and examine the Bush administration campaign to convince Americans of something that was not true and for which they never had any convincing evidence. After all, at the moment we went to war with Iraq, a full 70 percent of Americans questioned told pollsters that Iraq had been responsible, in total or in part, for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Nearly 50 percent had actually invented the belief that a majority of the hijackers had been Iraqis. Both the Bush administration and much of the media--usually accused of being liberal, anti-war and anti-Bush--treat these beliefs as if they sprung out of thin air--as if nothing claimed by the administration or reported by the so-called "liberal media" could possibly have contributed to this widespread misimpression that paved the road for what has turned out to be a catastrophic war. Well, take a look at what the American people were seeing and hearing from their leaders, along with their alleged watchdogs charged by the First Amendment with keeping those leaders accountable.

[Miss Authoritiva]

1. These are better statistics than the National Institutes of Health and

the American Cancer Society have achieved after 40 years of warning the public about the link between smoking and lung cancer. I guess it all depends upon the receptivity of the audience, ie, people believe what they want to believe.

"After all, at the moment we went to war with Iraq, a full 70 percent of Americans questioned told pollsters that Iraq had been responsible, in total or in part, for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Nearly 50 percent had actually invented the belief that a majority of the hijackers had been Iraqis."