Think Progress Blasts Chris Wallace

Think Progress blogged In a stunning display of historical revisionism, Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace argued this morning that President Bush never tried to link al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein:

[T]hat specific quote there where you say he couldn’t distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, he wasn’t saying that they were linked at all. He was saying one was as bad as the other, and when he said in that same answer something about that Saddam Hussein would like to use a terrorist network, he wasn’t saying that they would like to use al Qaeda. So you’re making a link there that the President never made.

Wallace focused on a single statement President Bush made on September 25, 2002. (“[Y]ou can’t distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror.”) But that statement was part of a series of statements that intentionally and explicitly linked Saddam and al Qaeda in the lead up to war. For example, this statement by Bush on February 8, 2003:

Saddam Hussein has longstanding, direct and continuing ties to terrorist networks. Senior members of Iraqi intelligence and al Qaeda have met at least eight times since the early 1990s. Iraq has sent bomb-making and document forgery experts to work with al Qaeda. Iraq has also provided al Qaeda with chemical and biological weapons training. And an al Qaeda operative was sent to Iraq several times in the late 1990s for help in acquiring poisons and gases.

Virtually none of that was true.

Really, what part was untrue? No one is saying that Saddam planned the 9/11 attack, but there is a big difference between that, and saying there were no connections with terrorists.

• Saddam Hussein has longstanding, direct and continuing ties to terrorist networks.
  That is clearly true. Saddam paid money to each terrorist bomber that hit Israel.
• Senior members of Iraqi intelligence and al Qaeda have met at least eight times since the early 1990s.
  I know there have been cases pointed out when they met. I am not sure when or how many, but in over 10 years I think it very reasonable there were at least eight. David Kay said "At various times Al Qaeda people came through Baghdad and in some cases resided there", in the sentence before the one that Think Progress quoted below. If they were going through Baghdad and in some case living there, it would be very strange to think that in over 10 years they did not meet at least 8 times with senior members of Iraqi intelligence
• Iraq has sent bomb-making and document forgery experts to work with al Qaeda.
  I have no examples of this, but I have no doubt it is true.
• Iraq has also provided al Qaeda with chemical and biological weapons training.
  Terrorists trained at the Ansar al-Islam camp in northern Iraq in chemical and biological weapons
• And an al Qaeda operative was sent to Iraq several times in the late 1990s for help in acquiring poisons and gases.
  As indicated above, David Kay said "At various times Al Qaeda people came through Baghdad and in some cases resided there" What were they there for? To party in one of the palaces?

The administration’s hand picked weapons inspector, David Kay, concluded “We simply did not find any evidence of extensive links with Al Qaeda, or for that matter any real links at all.” But to pretend that President Bush never made an effort to link Saddam and al-Qaeda is incredibly irresponsible, even for Fox.