Hardball: Former Bush aide Ari Fleischer still trying to link 9/11 and Iraq
Posted Mar 12, 2009, 2:48 PM PT by Jed Lewison • First broadcast: Mar 12, 2009
Rush transcript from closed caption data available in the extended entry.
We begin with david corn and former assistance defense secretary frank gaffeny with the center for security policy. Frank, let me talk to you about last night and what happened here when ari fleisher made that statement which he later adjusted saying he didn’t mean the way it came across that saddam hussein had to be prevented from attacking again a that’s why we went to war with iraq. What’s your thoughts?
>> He didn’t say attack us again. I think ari was right in the characterization of it as saddam hussein could not be allowed to attack again. Wherever. Including as he had repeatedly promised to do in exacting revenge against the united states for the humiliation that we inflicted upon him in “desert storm” and as we have talked about with david and sometimes without him, we know on the basis of the investigation conducted inside iraq after the place was liberated that he had plans to put chemical and biologgent in aerosol sprayers and perfume sprayers for shipment to the united states and europe. That’s the kind of terrorist threat I think president bush was right in preimptively stopping and removing saddam hussein.
[00:06:11]
>> The polling that took place before we attacked conducted by “time” and cnn showed that 72% of the american people and nearly three quarters believed it was likely saddam hussein was involved in the attack on us 9/11. How dike they got that idea, that somehow going to war with iraq was getting even for 9/11?
>> Getting even were “desert storm” and wouldn’t be unreasonable to conclude that’s what he was doing and circumstantial evidence, not proven by any means, but nonetheless, compelling circumstantial evidence of saddam hussein’s iraq being involved with the people who perpetrated the 1993 attack on the world trade center and the oklahoma city bombing so the american people I think are not stupid. I think that they were looking at a threat environment in which a guy like saddam hussein who’s repeatedly talking about exacting revenge against the united states, who was trying to shoot down our aircraft, who was actively supporting terrorism around the world was a guy that you don’t want to have an opportunity to act on his threats.
>> Okay. Well, we — before we hear from david corn, let’s show the compilation of clips by — comments made on the record, on the air by president bush and by vice president dick cheney about iraq and its role in 9/11. Let’s take a look at them beginning with vice president dick cheney on “meet the press” talking an about meeting described between 9/11 hijacker attah and an intelligence agent in prague, a meeting which the 9/11 commission said never took place.
>> Pretty well confirmed that he did go to prague and he did meet with senior official of the iraqi intelligence service.
>> He is a threat because he’s dealing with al qaeda.
>> Evidence from intelligence sources secret communications and statements made by people now in custody reveal that saddam hussein aids and protects terrorists. Including members of al qaeda. Used to be that we could think that you could contain a person like saddam hussein. That oceans would protect us from his type of terror. September the 11th should say to the american people that we are now on a battlefield.
>> The battle of iraq is one battle that began on september 11th, 2001.
>> David corn, how did the american people get the overwhelming belief that saddam hussein had attacked us on 9/11? That he was involved very directly and personally, personally in the attack on us on 9/11 and therefore, the war in iraq was retribution?
>> They listened to statements like those. Dick cheney said pretty well confirmed. The report that attah, ring leader of 9/11, many it with iraqi intelligence an officer and in prague. And at the time he made — you stated that the 9/11 commission found that never happened. At the time, the cia and fbi debunked those reports or at least cast tremendous amount of skepticism on it. They were dubious at best.
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>> You mean by december of ‘01?
>> Yes. He kept saying it up to and after the invasion. He repeated that at least a half dozen times while the intelligence community saying, this is not true. And what’s also doubly spushs about this, even if attah met with one officer of the iraqi intelligence service, what would it mean? Maybe absolutely nothing. Maybe the iraqis wanted to keep tabs on al qaeda. That would have made sense for their own purposes. It didn’t mean a plot. He took an event that didn’t happen and put an evil con nation around it and sowed it on “meet the press” and elsewhere to the american public. Again, when bush said as we saw that iraq is dealing with al qaeda, and the present tense, intelligence analysts at the time saying there was not a strong case to be made for this and bush said that iraq had given training and poison and chemical weaponry to al qaeda.
>> Okay.
>> And that wasn’t true either.
>> The fact of the mattert polls show going over the years from 9/11, frank gaffeny, until the invasion or liberation of iraq as you call it, the american polling showing over and over again that people believed that the actual people in the airplanes that attacked us in the suicide raids on 9/11 were iraqis. How do they get that idea? I would contend that the record here suggests that their leaders toad them so. You disagree. You disagree, right?
>> Yeah. I disagree. None of the clips you broadcast say that. On this question about who attah met in prague and didn’t meet with, look, I mean, I find it charming that david corn would say maybe they were just getting together to keep tabs on one another if they got together and there were intelligence reports ultimately the cia and dea i think concluded that they were not persuasive —
>> at the time that cheney said that —
>> ultimately, david —
>> at the time that cheney said that there were not pretty well confirmed.
>> May I finish? May I finish? May I finish?
>> Yeah.
>> At the time there were reports confirming it, disputing it. I think oosh.
>> That’s not true.
>> Absolutely true. You said so yourself. The point is that when you look, chris, at what dick cheney, what george bush, what donald rumsfeld, what all of the people who you are still kicking around to my astonishment were saying at the time was we are in a dangerous world. We are indeed a battlefield. The idea they can’t hit us here is no longer true. That people wish to hurt us here is now beyond doubt. And the question was, was saddam hussein one of those people? I believe he was. I’m delighted that he is no longer in business and I think the evidence that I have just suggested —
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>> the question —
>> makes it clear —
>> open this up. Okay. Let’s just quote the 9/11 commission. Frank, do you at this moment in time in march of 2009, do you challenge that?
>> I do. I believe that there is evidence that they were collaborating on all kinds of things. Whether we can prove beyond a reasonable doubt or to the satisfaction of that partisan or bipartisan as you wish commission, I believe, is an open question.
>> You know —
>> here’s the point. Hear me out.
>> No. Facts are the point.
>> Chris, hear me out, please.
>> Not what you believe.
>> Just hear me out.
>> Give me the facts.
>> I’ll defer to you in a moment. The point is that we don’t have only nishs about the world. Most especially about secret, terrorist organizations and police states. We have a lot of evidence that these guys were meeting, they were organizing something. They were sharing technology. They were sharing intelligence.
>> No. There you go again, frank.
>> We have lots of evidence of that. What were they doing about it? We don’t know and the conclusion to keep tabs on each other is ridiculous, david!
>> Frank, frank, how do you breathe if you never pause?
>> I don’t pause because you’ll jump in and interrupt me. That’s why.
>> We don’t have good evidence. We have no evidence.
>> Circumstantial evidence.
>> Now, I’ll set the rules of engagement here. If we don’t know that 9/11 or iraq had anything to do with 9/11, if we don’t know that, you say it’s an open case and never proved that he had nuclear weapons, do you go to war against another country with the loss of lives and treasure of thousands of american lives and limited number of iraqis dead, do you something like that, do you go to war with when you don’t have the case made? You admit it’s an open case. I want you to know the rules of engagement mere. When you do you go to war, frank?
>> I said to you in the immediate aftermath of 3,000 americans being slaughtered by some people who had clab rabtive relationships with iraqi intelligence.
>> There we go again. Who? Who? Frank, stop there and tell me who had a relationship.
>> The kinds of attacks that we now know saddam hussein clearly had in mind with chemical and biological agents.
>> Why didn’t this evidence reach the bipartisan iraqi committee?
>> No.
>> Why didn’t the committee — why didn’t the 9/11 commission have this information if it exists?
>> I believe they went with the judgment of the intelligence community that it wasn’t clear cut. It wasn’t dispositive but it is not the same thing as — there’s no evidence. That’s not true.
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>> Thu the knee joe conservative conspiracy theory.
>> It is not. There’s documents that were available.
>> David?
>> Ignored evidence.
>> — Published in books, magazines.
>> Yeah, a book wildly debunked and we took it apart in our book. There are books out there saying a lot of things, frank. Doesn’t make it so.
>> Look at douglas —
>> douglas is another foal low with a great track record on this.
>> He happens to have been there in the midst of it.
>> Yes. He was there. He was in the middle of this —
>> relevance.
>> You say that it’s —
>> working with the evidence that was available.
>> Let’s go back to what the president said days before he invaded iraq. He said the intelligence and weapons of mass destruction was beyond doubt. He didn’t say we don’t know. Maybe yes. Maybe no. We can’t take a chance. He said it was beyond doubt.
>> It was.
>> So is that not misleading to the american public?
>> It was beyond doubt.
>> That is rock solid.
>> It was beyond doubt at the time and that was the view of the democratic friends. And by the way —
>> no. Half the democrats in the house voted against it. Half the democrats in the house —
>> including the most prominent democrats voted for it on the basis of the same intelligence starting with hillary clinton. Starting with joe biden. Starting with john kerry.
>> You justify your actions by mistakes being in line with your mistakes?
>> No, no. What I’m saying —
>> people inside —
>> okay. I have to draw —
>> that’s not true. It was —
>> okay. Let me ask you this.
>> To the minds of democrats and republicans.
>> Okay. Let many ask — can I ask you both? Ask you this question about what we learned. What did we learn in the case for war as it was made? Did we learn that it was made fairly and appropriately and went to war for good cause and made no mistakes or rushed to war based upon a false apprehension on the part of the american people believing there was a connection as they did in the polling between iraq and 9/11, and a mistake, if you will, or a reckless case that there was a nuclear weapons in the hands or about to be in the hands of saddam hussein and that was a justification for war? Did we learn anything or, frank, were we right to go to war and we did it, right? I want the know what we learned from this. It’s in the past. We can’t change it. What did we learn, frank?
>> I think we did the right thing and unfortunately taken away from the experience is we are going to let everybody get their hands on the weapons of mass destruction. Most immediately iran. And then deal with it after they start probably using it. I think that’s a terrible lesson and the wrong one to have learned.
>> David, what did we learn?
>> Not to take at face value over the top, hyper bollic claims of what threats are. Saddam hussein was a potential threat. He wasn’t the dire threat that bush and others portrayed him to be and in all this talk about it’s great that barack obama has not inherited a world with saddam hussein but it is not a world with 100,000 iraqis who have been killed in the course of this time, you know, 3,000, 4,000 americans and tens of thousands of casualties. It is not such a simple equation when ari fleisher last night or frank says isn’t it great that saddam hussein is not here? we the cost is high in blood and treasure.
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>> I think history is not written here and I want to see more history written on this. I don’t think doug fife’s the last word on this. Thank you, david corn. Unfortunately people like him had their way. Thank you, frank gaffeny.
