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Administration Case for War?
by Alan Bock
The most plausible reason I could come up with for the curious dance of denial by top administration officials regarding a direct connection between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 terrorist attacks is that it was a short-term political effort to defuse Vice President Cheney's rather extravagant and over-the-top assertions Sunday before last on "Meet the Press." Here's how it seems to have played out.

Mr. Cheney went a little far in pressing the case that Saddam was a major sponsor of terrorism or a crony of al-Qaida, and the pols feared another uranium-yellowcake controversy at a time when Bush's ranking in the polls was already declining. ...

...on September 25, 2002, President Bush said, "Al Qaida hides, Saddam doesn't, but the danger is that they work in concert. The danger is that al Qaida becomes an extension of Saddam's madness and his hatred and his capacity to extend weapons of mass destruction around the world ... You can't distinguish between al Qaida and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror."

This spin was immediately respun by White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, who said the next day that the president was talking about what he feared might happen rather than what he thought had already happened. But it was followed by more blurring from various officials. As syndicated columnist Tom Teepen put it, "administration officials spent months suggesting that Saddam was implicated, regularly speaking of him while denouncing the terrorism and raising fears of more, clearly implying a link. And when braced directly on the issue, some – following Vice President Dick Cheney's lead – would pull a sly face and suggest that to say more would compromise intelligence sources."...