Truespeak

As I have mentioned several times before, one of the more intriguing books I've read about the Bush administration is Worse Than Watergate by John W. Dean Yes, that John W. Dean). Written in 2004, Dean claimed that this White House had several scandals bubbling just below the surface and that they were bound to come out over time. Boy-oh-boy was he ever right. Just take a look at the news and you're bound to read about something that has just surfaced about prewar intelligence or backroom deals or incompetence. They seem to be coming with a little more regularity now and with Georgieboy's and Five Deferment Cheney's ratings in the shitter, the press doesn't seem to be holding anything back. Hell, even the tabloid headlines are getting attention. But today might be the start of the deluge. This from the National Journal's Murray Waas:

Ten days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President Bush was told in a highly classified briefing that the U.S. intelligence community had no evidence linking the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein to the attacks and that there was scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al Qaeda, according to government records and current and former officials with firsthand knowledge of the matter.

The information was provided to Bush on September 21, 2001 during the "President's Daily Brief," a 30- to 45-minute early-morning national security briefing. Information for PDBs has routinely been derived from electronic intercepts, human agents, and reports from foreign intelligence services, as well as more mundane sources such as news reports and public statements by foreign leaders.

One of the more intriguing things that Bush was told during the briefing was that the few credible reports of contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda involved attempts by Saddam Hussein to monitor the terrorist group. Saddam viewed Al Qaeda as well as other theocratic radical Islamist organizations as a potential threat to his secular regime. At one point, analysts believed, Saddam considered infiltrating the ranks of Al Qaeda with Iraqi nationals or even Iraqi intelligence operatives to learn more about its inner workings, according to records and sources.

The September 21, 2001, briefing was prepared at the request of the president, who was eager in the days following the terrorist attacks to learn all that he could about any possible connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda.

Well, whaddya' know? George and the gang knew all along that Iraq and al Qaeda had nothing to do with each other. Good thing they never made that claim, huh? Good thing they never insinuated anything like that, eh? What a bunch of fucking liars. Unbelievable. Un-fucking-believeable.