On the eve of the third anniversary of September
11, 2001, the US House of Representatives - by an
overwhelming, bipartisan majority of 406-16 - passed a
resolution linking Iraq to the al-Qaeda attacks on the
World Trade Center and the Pentagon. This comes despite
conclusions reached by the bipartisan 9-11 Commission, a
recent Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) report, and the
consensus of independent strategic analysts familiar
with the region that no such links ever existed.
The resolution contains appropriate and
predictable language paying tribute to the rescue
workers and victims' families. It also notes actions
taken by the US government in response to the attacks,
such as the creation of the Department of Homeland
Security, improvements in intelligence procedures,
enhanced coordination among government agencies, and
hardening cockpit doors on commercial aircraft. Actions
by US allies were noted as well, such as their arrest of
key al-Qaeda operatives in Europe and elsewhere.
However, the resolution also contains language
designed, despite the lack of any credible evidence, to
associate the former Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein
with the September 11 attacks.
Al-Qaeda =
Taliban = Iraq For example, the resolution states
that "since the United States was attacked, it has led
an international military coalition in the destruction
of two terrorist regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq".
First of all, there appears to be a calculated
ambiguity in the language of that clause through the use
of the word "since", which can mean "from the time when"
as well as "because".
Second, these two military
operations were very different. While there was no
evidence that the Taliban regime of Afghanistan was
directly involved in international terrorism, it
undeniably provided the most important base of
operations for the al-Qaeda terrorist network, which
shared the Taliban's extremist Wahhabi-influenced brand
of Islamist ideology. In return, al-Qaeda provided
direct support for the Taliban by contributing fighters
to the Afghan government in the face of military
challenges by rebels of the Northern Alliance. Despite
concerns over the large numbers of civilians killed as a
result of the US bombing and missile attacks and other
aspects of US military operations, much of the
international community supported the legitimacy of the
war effort.
By contrast, despite extraordinary
efforts by the US government to find some kind of
association between the Islamist al-Qaeda and the
secular Ba'athists then in power in Iraq, no such links
have been found. Relatively few countries have supported
the US invasion and occupation of Iraq outside of poor
debtor nations that received enormous pressure from the
United States to do so.
Allegations of Iraqi
support of other anti-US terrorist groups appear to be
groundless as well. Despite backing Abu Nidal and other
secular terrorist groups in the 1980s, Iraqi support for
international terrorism declined markedly in subsequent
years; the last act of anti-American terrorism the US
government formally tied to Iraq was back in early 1993.
The State Department's annual study "Patterns of Global
Terrorism" did not list any acts of international
terrorism linked directly to the government of Iraq in
subsequent years. The most evidence of indirect Iraqi
involvement in terrorism the administration of President
George W Bush has been able to come up with was Iraqi
financial support of the tiny pro-Saddam Palestinian
group known as the Arab Liberation Front, which passed
on funds to families of Palestinians who died in the
struggle against Israel, including some families of
suicide bombers. Such Iraqi support was significantly
less than the support many of these same families have
received from Saudi Arabia and other US-backed Arab
monarchies. In fact, Hamas and other radical Palestinian
groups have received extensive direct support from these
countries as well, but apparently not from Iraq.
The resolution goes on to note that "United
States Armed Forces and Coalition forces have killed or
captured 43 of the 55 most wanted criminals of the
Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, including Saddam Hussein
himself". While this statement is in itself true, there
is no evidence to suggest that any of these members of
the former Iraqi regime had anything to do with
September 11. As a result, it appears that the House
decided to include this clause as an attempt to
associate Saddam Hussein's regime, in the eyes of the
American people, with the attacks.
The
Saddam-al-Zarqawi-bin Laden connection The single
most misleading clause in the House resolution claims
that "the al-Zarqawi terror network used Baghdad as a
base of operations to coordinate the movement of people,
money, and supplies". This charge was originally raised
by Secretary of State Colin Powell in his February 2003
speech before the United Nations and has long since been
discredited. Indeed, a recent CIA report concluded that
there was no evidence that Saddam's regime had in any
way harbored, provided aid to, or in any other way
supported Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
While the
Jordanian-born al-Zarqawi and his followers were indeed
located inside Iraq's borders prior to the US invasion,
they were not based in Baghdad, but in the far north of
the country inside the Kurdish safe havens the United
Nations had established in 1991, well beyond the control
of Saddam's government.
Indeed, the only
evidence the Bush administration has been able to put
forward linking the al-Zarqawi terror network to the
Iraqi capital was a brief stay that al-Zarqawi had in a
Baghdad hospital at the end of 2001, apparently having
been smuggled by supporters into the country from Iran
and smuggled out days later. The recent CIA report has
called even this claim into question, however.
Charges by Powell and other administration
officials that al-Zarqawi was affiliated with al-Qaeda
leader Osama bin Laden also appear to have little merit.
Indeed, there is a fair amount of evidence to suggest
that the two see each other as rivals.
This
apparently fictional al-Zarqawi connection alleged by
Congress is significant in that it was a key component
of one of the justifications put forward by the Bush
administration for invading Iraq in the weeks leading up
to the start of the war in March 2003. For if al-Zarqawi
was closely aligned with al-Qaeda, and if Saddam Hussein
was allowing the al-Zarqawi terror network to use
Baghdad as a base of operations, and if Saddam was
manufacturing weapons of mass destruction, therefore
Saddam could pass these weapons on to al-Zarqawi, who
would then pass them on to al-Qaeda, which in turn could
then use them on the United States. Therefore, according
to this argument, the United States had to invade Iraq
and overthrow Saddam's government to protect itself from
a chemical, biological or nuclear attack.
It
appears, then, that the House of Representatives decided
to include the long-since-disproved claim that "the
al-Zarqawi terror network used Baghdad as a base of
operations to coordinate the movement of people, money,
and supplies" to justify the bipartisan vote in October
2002 authorizing the invasion.
(Ironically,
since the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, the
al-Zarqawi terror network has established extensive
cells in Baghdad and elsewhere in the country, which it
was unable to do during Saddam's regime. It is believed
to be responsible for many of the most devastating car
bombings and other acts of terrorism that have killed
hundreds of civilians and wreaked havoc on Iraq since
the US takeover of that country during the spring of
2003.)
Bipartisan efforts to hide the
truth This is not the first time that Republicans
and Democrats in the House of Representatives have
teamed up to present the invasion of Iraq as a
justifiable response to September 11.
Just days
after Bush forced United Nations weapons inspectors out
of Iraq and commenced the US invasion, the House voted
392-11 to express its "unequivocal support and
appreciation" to Bush for leading the nation to war
against Iraq "as part of the ongoing Global War on
Terrorism".
Some Democrats have defended that
March 2003 vote on the grounds that House members were
simply fooled by Bush and others who insisted Iraq had a
close connection with al-Qaeda.
However, the
fact that Congress would pass another resolution by a
similarly one-sided margin long after US military and
intelligence officials had gone through many thousands
of captured Iraqi documents and had interviewed hundreds
of former Iraqi officials and still failed to find any
credible evidence of any such ties appears to indicate
that there indeed remains a calculated bipartisan
attempt to mislead the American people.
Such
dishonest rhetoric from the Bush administration has
become all too common in the three years since the
September 11 attacks. Why, then, would the Democrats
also want to perpetuate such myths that are in essence
designed to grant legitimacy to Republican President
Bush's illegal and disastrous invasion of Iraq?
Perhaps, in some cases, they were too busy or too
lazy to bother reading the resolution, and just assumed
it was a tribute to the September 11 victims. Perhaps
some of them were afraid that the Republicans would
accuse them in the fall campaign of "voting against a
resolution honoring the brave firefighters" if they did
otherwise, and this was just another case of the
Democrats wimping out.
However, the real answer
may lie in the fact that while a majority of Americans
now believe that the United States should have never
invaded Iraq, the Democratic leadership of both the
Senate and the House of Representatives firmly supported
the US invasion of that oil-rich country. More important
this presidential election year, Democratic nominee John
Kerry and his running mate John Edwards both voted in
October 2002 to authorize President Bush to launch the
war at any time and under any circumstances of his own
choosing, a decision they both defend to this day. As a
result, if the US public can be convinced that Iraq
somehow had something to do with the September 11
tragedy, more voters might be willing to see these two
Democratic senators not as irresponsible militarists who
helped drag the United States into an illegal,
unnecessary and bloody counter-insurgency war, but as
bold leaders who acted decisively to defend the US from
future terrorist attacks.
In short, it appears
that neither the Republicans nor the Democrats have any
qualms about taking advantage of the anniversary of one
of the greatest disasters ever inflicted upon US soil to
justify the ongoing violence inflicted upon the people
of Iraq and upon American soldiers forced to fight
there. That these two parties are the only realistic
choices Americans have on a national level this election
year is not just a tragedy for the people of Iraq, but a
sad testament to the state of US democracy.
Stephen Zunes is Middle East editor
forForeign Policy In
Focusand the author of Tinderbox: US
Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism (Common
Courage Press, 2003). He serves as a professor of
Politics and chair of the Peace & Justice Studies
Program at the University of San Francisco. This article
is posted with permission from Foreign Policy In
Focus.
