Iraq, 9/11, and Oil

By Arabesque

What exactly do Iraq, 9/11, and oil have to do with each other?

While many object to the Iraq war for its conduct:

“Suppose that a President invaded another country, and adopted the unusual tactic of sending our troops in unarmed and unprotected, one platoon at a time, holding signs that said: We want to take over your country! Please surrender! And suppose that, unsurprisingly, the result of this was that those troops were all killed, one after the other. Suppose that the President was urged to adopt a different strategy, but refused, on the grounds that admitting mistakes would give comfort to our enemies; and that when some people began to mutter: not as much comfort as making those mistakes in the first place, he accused them of being defeatists. Finally, suppose that after several thousand troops had been killed in this way, the American people stopped supporting this President and his war. It would be beyond galling for the President to lecture them on their lack of will, or their insufficient concern for the people of the invaded country, when the reason for their lack of support was that his own idiocy had made any good outcome impossible.” -- Obsidian Wings

Others object to its premise:

Repeating the lies for starting a war does not make them true.

"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda." George Bush, May 24, 2005

George Bush truly is a master of this disinformation technique. Take for example, the claim that Iraq had a connection with 9/11. Here is what Bush has to say about the subject:

“We have no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the 11 September attacks.” September 3, 2003

"The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al Qaeda: because there was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda" June 18, 2004

“What did Iraq have to do with… [9/11]? Nothing!” August 21, 2006

“The same folks that are bombing innocent people in Iraq were the ones who attacked us in America on September the 11th.” July 12, 2007

Now, to some, it is a serious matter to lie about reasons to start a war. Some would say it's a basis for impeachment:

“To put it bluntly, if Bush has taken Congress and the nation into war based on bogus information, he is cooked. Manipulation or deliberate misuse of national security intelligence data, if proven, could be "a high crime" under the Constitution's impeachment clause.” John W. Dean, June 6, 2003

What have others said about the relationship of Iraq to 9/11?

“Saddam Hussein's government did not cooperate with al Qaeda prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the U.S. Defense Department said in a report based on interrogations of the deposed leader and two of his former aides.” Associated Press, April 6, 2007

“There is ‘no credible evidence’ that Saddam Hussein's government in Iraq collaborated with the al Qaeda terrorist network on any attacks on the United States, according to a new staff report released this morning by the [9/11] commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.” Washington Post, June 16, 2004

The Pentagon and the 9/11 Commission claim that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Even Bush admitted it once. But perhaps we shouldn't be surprised about the repetition of lies after hearing:

“We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.” New York Times, October 17, 2004

The embarrassing problem with creating your own reality is that you can’t always remember your lies.

Question: When did the US administration decide it wanted to go to war with Iraq? Was it after 9/11, or before 9/11?

“From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go,” says O’Neill, who adds that going after Saddam was topic "A" 10 days after the inauguration - eight months before Sept. 11. “From the very first instance, it was about Iraq. It was about what we can do to change this regime,” says Suskind. “Day one, these things were laid and sealed.” As treasury secretary, O'Neill was a permanent member of the National Security Council. He says in the book he was surprised at the meeting that questions such as "Why Saddam?" and "Why now?" were never asked. "It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The president saying ‘Go find me a way to do this,’" says O’Neill. “For me, the notion of pre-emption, that the U.S. has the unilateral right to do whatever we decide to do, is a really huge leap.”

Why would they want to do this?

Before 9/11, Dick Cheney arranged secret Energy Task Force meetings. Judicial Watch sued for the release of documents from these meetings:

"These are documents turned over by the Commerce Department, under a March 5, 2002 court order as a result of Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit concerning the activities of the Cheney Energy Task Force. The documents contain a map of Iraqi oilfields, pipelines, refineries and terminals, as well as 2 charts detailing Iraqi oil and gas projects, and “Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts.” The documents are dated March 2001.

Project Censored remarked:

“Documented plans of occupation and exploitation predating September 11 confirm heightened suspicion that U.S. policy is driven by the dictates of the energy industry.”

In fact, there were also plans to go to war with Afghanistan before 9/11 happened.

So then, why are Bush and the mainstream media continuously lying about Iraq's connection to 9/11?

Because they needed a justification—like "a new Pearl Harbor" to go to war. It's an old trick.

9/11 supplied what they needed.