Monday, July 16, 2007

Chicago Sun-Times Editorial - This claim is sounding ever weaker

Chicago Sun-Times Editorial - This claim is sounding ever weaker
Copyright by The Chicago Sun-Times
July 16, 2007


"The same folks that are bombing innocent people in Iraq were the ones who attacked us in America on September the 11th."

That's what President Bush said last week in defending his war policy in Iraq. He has been hammering that theme again with some regularity.

Nearly six years after 9/11, no one doubts al-Qaida remains a deadly threat to the United States. You had to be chilled by reports the terrorist group has rebuilt itself to "full strength" in Pakistan, near the Afghanistan border. You had to lament, once again, the United States' inability to nab Osama bin Laden, and its taking its eye off Afghanistan as it became embroiled in Iraq.

But the president's argument that winning the war in Iraq has anything to do with protecting ourselves from al-Qaida is way beyond its expiration date. Just as Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction were revealed to be a fictitious reason for invading Iraq, so was the Iraq-al-Qaida connection.

Is al-Qaida in Iraq? You bet. But it wasn't there in force before 9/11. America's presence in Iraq, it is widely believed, spawned the al-Qaida in Iraq group and added to the terrorist threat.

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