When Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Ut.) was speaking to a small group of core supporters in the bustling berg of St. George Utah he has this to say about the nature of Saddam Hussein ties to terrorist. From the St. George Spectrum:
"And, more importantly, we've stopped a mass murderer in Saddam Hussein. Nobody denies that he was supporting al-Qaida,"
[snip}
"Well, I shouldn't say nobody. Nobody with brains."
There is only one little flaw with this statement, it isn't in any way true. As any number of official reports, from the 9-11 commission on down have noted, there were no operational ties between Saddam and Bin Laden. In fact they were far closer to being rivals that allies.
Yet, Sen. Hatch is still feeding them comfortable lie. Lies they want to hear, and lies he wants to tell. It makes them all feel better about being wrong. It is a mask, covering their error, and error that has led to the killing tens to hundreds of thousands of people and spending of trillions of dollars.
But when Sen. Hatch is confronted about his statements, he lies about his first lie.
"Saddam clearly had a long history of supporting terrorists, but I was not talking about any formal link between Saddam and al-Qaida before the war, Instead, I pointed out that the current insurgency in Iraq includes al-Qaida, under the leadership of al-Zarqawi, along with former elements of Saddam's regime."
That is not only a lie, but a stupid and easily demonstrated lie.
All this just shows the desire of the Republicans to hold true to the initial lie, that Saddam presented a real threat, that mushroom clouds would be the result of not invading, that democrats are wrong in wanting an international resolution and not opting for the cowboy approach of George Bush.
History has proven them wrong, but if they can just hold on the lies, the ones about the ties to Bin Laden, the ones about weapons of mass destruction, even it is just between themselves, well maybe thay can pretend that Iraq was a good decision after all.
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Hatch Utah Iraq
10 comments:
You really want to go here, John? First, a lie implies you made a statement you KNOW is untrue. The WMD existance in Iraq has NEVER fit that category.
Having gone to a Service Academy, I take lying VERY seriously and not to be used as a hyperbolic device to use against people without solid evidence. To me calling a well-respected Senator (on both sides of the aisle, BTW) a "liar" is the equivalent of calling a woman the "C" word or an African-American the "N" word.
You take a statement "he was supporting al-Qaida" to be the same of "no operational ties between Saddam and Bin Laden" to claim he was lying. That, to me, is obscene behavior.
Yes, I want to go there.
He lied, plain and simple. There is NO evidenc of any support of Bin Laden.
Two days later, when questioned, he lied again.
One reason politicians lie so much, is people don't call them on it. As long as they can get away with it they will.
THis one type of lie is doubly foul. It is not only a lie, but a lie to cover past mistakes, and to perpuate the myth that this war is legal or just
Have you read this or do you only read what the MSM puts out:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/248eaurh.asp
Does this change your mind on your absolute judgement that Sen. Hatch is "lying" or could he have a different interpretation of the findings of the 9/11 commission than you? Also, he's on the Intellegence Committee; you think he might know more about this area than most of us (especially reporters)?
The weekly standard, you must be kidding. They are even less reliable that Mother Jones or The Nation.
Saddam was a secular leader who had delusions of leading a neo-facist pan arab empire. He dabled in religion to look faithful to the masses, but he was very anti-religious. Bin Laden is actually very religious, despises the despotic leaders in the Arab nations and wants to produce an islamic paradise led by the leaders of the faith.
They both wanted the same piece of land and the same people, undet thier control, and the other was going to be in the way.
These wacky ideas are just funny. Like the Bozo on fox news (the weekly standard for the less literate) news trying to sell the idea that the Iraqi stockpiles were move to Syria by the Russians.
laughable on so many levels.
He was telling his supporters a little bed time story that he tells himself. That Sadda, was a threat, and we were right to invade. The real damage is, now these people go out and futher spread the same lie, because a Seantor told it to them (and that is what he wants).
PS, the link fails
yeah, yeah, I've heard that argument before, that Saddam Hussein and Al-Qiada were enemies, but no one can point to actual evidence that this was so. Yet, the Weekly Standard article points to DIRECT first person evidence that the two parties were, at a minimum speaking with each other, and that it's in the commission report!!
Did you even bother to read the article before dismissing it?! If I read a "Nation" article I could at least point to areas where the author uses "unnamed sources" or leaps in logic to prove a point.
You do have a point though, about how impossible it is for ideological opponents to collude together for their own purposes. I mean the USSR would never form an agreement with the Nazis in a build up to WWII or, later, with the capitalist US during WWII, would they? Oh, wait, that's as ridiculous as the US (both under both parties' presidents) working with brutal dictators if they were against communism. Yeah, that would NEVER happen.
first person evidence that the two parties were, at a minimum speaking with each other
Lets say 'at most' talking to each other. This is old new, from 2004, in the Washington Post.
But the report of the commission's staff, based on its access to all relevant classified information, said that there had been contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda but no cooperation.
As to the chemical weapons movemnent.
We had AWACS, JSTAR, and coyuntless other assetts over the land since 1992. We claimed that Iraq had million of pounds of depolyable weapons.
Are our armed forces so incompentent to miss such a large movement of material being handeled by the armed forces of a power that has been our primary focus since the 40s.
occam's razor applies here.
and, as I said earlier
your link failed
John, sorry I missed that the link didn't work the article in the Weekly Standard directly refutes that very Wa Po article... Let's try this link
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/378fmxyz.asp
Crap let me try this again not the original one I referenced but one of the latest by Stephen Hayes:
Latest
You use Occam's razor wrongly. in this case because there is conflicting observations, e.g. why would Saddam thwart weapons inspectors if he had nothing to hide? I'm not a big fan of the "WMD exported to Syria" theory, but your basis for the Occam's razor explanation is very weak. You have a Tom Clancy/ screen writer's vision of our intel capability. The border length between Syria and Iraq is over 300 miles (all passable seeing as it's mostly desert). Besides, do you know what the normal commicial traffic is between the two countries even on major roads? I certainly don't to make the claim that we could have discovered such a movement of weapons.
why would Saddam thwart weapons inspectors if he had nothing to hide?
Saddam wanted his neighbors to 'know' he had them, he wanted the west to 'think'he had them. He had a deep seeded need to be the biggest bad ass on the block, and WMDs was the only option left after the Iran and Gulf war destroyed his army.
I'm not a big fan of the "WMD exported to Syria" theory, but your basis for the Occam's razor explanation is very weak. You have a Tom Clancy/ screen writer's vision of our intel capability. The border length between Syria and Iraq is over 300 miles
If we were talking a few odd weapons then the Syria theory could hold water (but what kind of threat were a few out of date weapons). The theory has been that Saddam did have the weapons that we claimed, but moved them, would involve hundreds of truck loads, or flights.
Besides, do you know what the normal commicial traffic is between the two countries even on major roads? I certainly don't to make the claim that we could have discovered such a movement of weapons.
Huge amounts of traffic, but
these are not just something you can jam in a truck. Chemical shells (or bio shells) raw materials, nuclear materals all demand special handeling and special treatment. Such a massive operation should not be able to hidden.
Add to all improbable aspect of thousands of loads of material being loaded and then moved, hidding and storing millions of pounds materials that have to have special storage or they will decay is again something that is not likley to stay unkonwn for long.
It is all a fantasy, to sustain the lie.
And when you are caught lying about the first part, you then have to lie to explain away the first lie
I think I have found both stories now.
Both by Stephen F. Hayes, both filled with speculation and cherry picked data.
I notice that he is still trying to sell the Atta meeting in Prague. That alone should tell you that he has an agenda in his reporting.
That is fine, in the Standard or the Nation that is expected.
He is building the thesis the same way the Bush administration built the case for the invasion.
Taking the most inflamitory bits of data, ignoring or downplaying the information that could weaking the parts they like, and presenting it as a whole.
An example of his use of partial data. He points to Zarqawi and his presence in Iraq. This he says is an indicator of ties (there are a number of reasons why this is flawed).
The first bit of trouble Hayes avoids by never mentioning is; Zarqawi spent his time in a camp in the nothern mountians, well inside the Kurdish territory on the Iranian border.
Unless you still think he had his leg amputated there, as the administration claimed for almost 2 year.
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