If the President Says It, It Must be So!

The New York Times has a good article today on a recent embarrassment the administration suffered.

"Of all the ways Mr. Bush persuaded Americans to back the invasion of Iraq last year, the most plainly dishonest was his effort to link his war of choice with the battle against terrorists worldwide. While it's possible that Mr. Bush and his top advisers really believed that there were chemical, biological and nuclear weapons in Iraq, they should have known all along that there was no link between Iraq and Al Qaeda. No serious intelligence analyst believed the connection existed; Richard Clarke, the former antiterrorism chief, wrote in his book that Mr. Bush had been told just that.

Nevertheless, the Bush administration convinced a substantial majority of Americans before the war that Saddam Hussein was somehow linked to 9/11. And since the invasion, administration officials, especially Vice President Dick Cheney, have continued to declare such a connection."

The Bush administration needs to figure out away to do what they've done with Weapons of Mass Destruction. Before the War they were claiming Hussein had WMD's that could threaten the United States at a moments notice, afterwards they claimed they had always been looking for Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs. That strategy has largely worked with the WMDs ("We're all actors in this I suppose."); they need to find a way to make it work with the Saddam/Al Qaeda link.