The following viewpoint is from a Toronto Star Article in June/04:
"Most Americans endorsed the war on Iraq because President George Bush and his advisers led them to believe Saddam Hussein was in cahoots with the 9/11 terrorists, and had a terrifying arsenal of biological and chemical weapons to boot.
Indeed, most Americans still believe Saddam helped Osama bin Laden plan the 9/11 attacks, despite a complete absence of evidence.
No surprise there. Bush continues to feed this myth. "There was a relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda," he insisted on Thursday.
Maybe so. But the American commission that has just exposed the chaos that prevailed at the White House on 9/11 has also torn into the myth that Saddam and bin Laden were partners in that crime.
There is "no credible evidence that Iraq and Al Qaeda co-operated on attacks against the United States," the commission concludes. What scattered contacts Al Qaeda may have had with Baghdad, never amounted to a loose alliance, much less a threat.
And of course, Bush has never found a single Iraqi horror weapon.
In short, the Iraq war was fought on bogus grounds. It never was about fighting 9/11 terror. If anything, it was a distraction.
Nearly three years after 9/11, bin Laden is still on the loose. Al Qaeda still threatens the continental U.S. and the group continues to attack U.S. interests in Iraq and elsewhere.
Yet Bush continues to cynically perpetuate the Saddam/bin Laden myth, because he needs to justify a $200 billion war that has killed 15,000 Iraqis and 830 Americans, and which continues to tie up 138,000 U.S. occupation troops.
Had a fraction of that huge U.S. effort gone into chasing down Al Qaeda, much of the terror threat that Americans and their allies still face, might have been removed. Instead, that battle is far from won.
And in a final irony, the 9/11 commission warns that Al Qaeda is trying to lay its hands on the kinds of weapons Saddam had given up long before Iraq was invaded. Bush has been fixated on the wrong foe."
Posted by qualteam
at 5:35 PM EDT
Updated: Wednesday, 8 September 2004 9:31 PM EDT
on fire
St Johns