The truth hurts, especially if you’re a member of the Bush Administration

By | September 12, 2006

Friday was a bad news day for the Bush administration. The truth is coming out, which is a bad thing for an administration that relies so much on lies and half-truths. The last thing that the Bush administration wants aired is the truth. Yet the truth has a habit of always being discovered, always being freed. It is inevitable that, eventually, someone will hear the truth, and then the truth will spread.

First up was the truth about Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida. Quoting the Associated Press article (via http://news.yahoo.com):

Saddam Hussein regarded al-Qaida as a threat rather than a possible ally, a Senate report says, contradicting assertions President Bush has used to build support for the war in Saddam Hussein regarded al-Qaida as a threat rather than a possible ally, a Senate report says, contradicting assertions President Bush has used to build support for the war in Iraq.

Released Friday, the report discloses for the first time an October 2005 CIA assessment that before the war, Saddam’s government “did not have a relationship, harbor or turn a blind eye toward” al-Qaida operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi or his associates.

The Bush administration has been trying to tie Iraq and al-Qaida together ever since they started trying to push for the Iraq war. But not only was their no connection between Saddam and al-Qaida, we now know that Hussein didn’t even like al-Qaida. Ironically enough, Saddam agreed with us when it came to al-Qaida. If we hadn’t have invaded Iraq, Saddam would’ve worked to keep al-Qaida out of Iraq. By attacking and destablizing Iraq’s government, we opened the door for al-Qaida to establish a foothold in Iraq.

Not good. Definitely not good.

The second bit of news that came out over the weekend is that our intelligence agencies can’t find hide nor hair of Osama Bin Laden (via the Washington Post):

The clandestine U.S. commandos whose job is to capture or kill Osamabin Laden have not received a credible lead in more than two years.Nothing from the vast U.S. intelligence world — no tips frominformants, no snippets from electronic intercepts, no points on anysatellite image — has led them anywhere near the al-Qaeda leader,according to U.S. and Pakistani officials.

“The handful of assetswe have have given us nothing close to real-time intelligence” thatcould have led to his capture, said one counterterrorism official, whosaid the trail, despite the most extensive manhunt in U.S. history, hasgone “stone cold.”

Now, this would already be bad. But this is even worse news, because it turns out that we had a chance to captura Osama in Tora Bora:

This calculation is based largely on a lack of activity elsewhere andon other intelligence, including a videotape, obtained exclusively bythe CIA and not previously reported, that shows bin Laden walking on atrail toward Pakistan at the end of the battle of Tora Bora in December2001, when U.S. forces came close but failed to capture him. [Emphasis mine]

We had the opportunity to capture the perpetrator of the most gruesome attack ever on American soil. We were able to get him on videotape. But instead of concentrating all of our forces on Tora Bora to track Osama down and bring him to justice, we instead started reassigning forces for the upcoming invasion of Iraq.

It is very good that this information is coming to light. As more and more information is released, more people will have to take notice.

The tide is turning.