The plans for the Iraq war were kept under tight wraps until Senator Graham spoke with General Franks about bin Laden and Omar on February 9, 2002 and Franks told a shocked Senator Graham that they aren't interested in trying to track bin Laden or Omar but are focusing on Iraq. A month later on March 13, 2002 Bush makes the statement about bin Laden, "I don't know where he is. I " I'll repeat I truly am not that concerned about him. That was the truth, almost from the start. Bush was not that interested in bin Laden other than for the political cover he provided him for the wars.
Even when Henry Crumpton briefed President Bush and Cheney in late November of 2001 on the immediate and essential need for added troops to capture or kill bin Laden in Tora Bora, the President did not act. By December 9, 2001, Vice President Cheney had changed his tune about an al Qaeda-Iraq connection and on Meet the Press began to lay the foundation for an Iraq-al Qaeda link. He stated Atta met with Iraqi intelligence in the Czech Republic before the September 11th bombing . He went further, saying Iraq harbored terrorists and was actively pursuing development of weapons of mass destruction. Even after the Atta and Iraqi intelligence were proven weak, Cheney was still saying it was "never proved Atta met Iraqi intelligence but never disproved. Since it is impossible to prove a negative, Cheney would use the same faulty logic for the Iraq war that Saddam never proved he didn't have Weapons of Mass Destruction.
With the Administration setting its sights on Iraq, efforts began in earnest to seek an al Qaeda-Iraq connection. The following year al-Libi (the highest ranking al Qaeda member in US custody) was transferred to Egypt where, under torture, he claimed an Iraq-al Qaeda connection in January 2002, although by February 2002 the Defense Intelligence questioned al-Libi's claims and could not corroborate anything. Even the CIA withdrew his remarks as unreliable by 2004. His admissions were simply to justify the Iraq invasion. Conflicting intelligence was "noise to be filtered out so the message was consistent " Iraq is a threat. October 2, 2002 Bush was in Cincinnati, OH, claiming Saddam Hussein had links to international terrorist groups and high level contacts with al Qaeda. Rumsfeld was making similar claims in September 2002 as was Cheney.
After the 9/11 panel found no link between Iraq and al Qaeda, Bush claimed in March 20, 2006 that he never linked September 11 and Iraq. In fact, Vice President Cheney as late as April 5, 2007 stated on the Rush Limbaugh show that al Qaeda operated inside Iraq before we ever launched a war. It wouldn't have mattered whether bin Laden died at Tora Bora or not; the plan was to push for an invasion of Iraq based on whatever could be used to justify that war, and any intelligence that contradicted that goal was simply irrelevant.
Meanwhile, the Bush Administration covered their rears from growing incriminating evidence to the contrary. When asked by Congress for specific documents related to the run up to the Iraq war, they refused to provide them. Specifically, they refused to provide the Presidential Brief of September 21, 2001 where Tenet told President Bush there was no Iraq-al Qaeda connection. They refused to provide the Special Operations Command report on Tora Bora operation, which was not declassified until April 6, 2007 and provided clear evidence of bin Laden in Tora Bora. They did not release the Department of Defense Intelligence questioning al-Libi's reliability. They released information supporting an al Qaeda-Iraq connection and nothing questioning the veracity of that evidence.
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