9/11 Linked To Iraq, In Politics if Not in Fact
By Peter Baker
Washington Post
The television commercial is grim and gripping: A soldier who lost both legs in an explosion near Fallujah explains why he thinks U.S. forces need to stay in Iraq.
"They attacked us," he says as the screen turns to an image of the second hijacked airplane heading toward the smoking World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. "And they will again. They won't stop in Iraq."
Every investigation has shown that Iraq did not, in fact, have anything to do with the Sept. 11 attacks. But the ad, part of a new $15 million media blitz launched by an advocacy group allied with the White House, may be the most overt attempt during the current debate in Congress over the war to link the attacks with Iraq.
Six years later, the Sept. 11 attacks remain the touchstone of American politics, the most powerful force that can be summoned on behalf of an argument even as a nation united in their aftermath today stands divided on their meaning. While Washington spent yesterday's anniversary debating the U.S. involvement in Iraq, it struggled to define the relationship between the war there and the worldwide battle with al-Qaeda and other extremists.
During the second day of hearings featuring Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, the echoes of Sept. 11 reverberated through the chamber. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a presidential candidate, got Petraeus to repeat his belief that Iraq is the "central front in the war on terror." Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), another White House aspirant, complained about the timing of the hearing because it "perpetuates this notion that, somehow, the original decision to go into Iraq was directly related to the attacks on 9/11."
Some Republicans described the offshoot group al-Qaeda in Iraq as the dominant threat on the ground, playing down the broader sectarian battle for power at the heart of the conflict. Some Democrats called the war a distraction from the hunt for Osama bin Laden, playing down al-Qaeda's determination to use Iraq to strike a blow against U.S. interests.
(Continued here.)
Washington Post
The television commercial is grim and gripping: A soldier who lost both legs in an explosion near Fallujah explains why he thinks U.S. forces need to stay in Iraq.
"They attacked us," he says as the screen turns to an image of the second hijacked airplane heading toward the smoking World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. "And they will again. They won't stop in Iraq."
Every investigation has shown that Iraq did not, in fact, have anything to do with the Sept. 11 attacks. But the ad, part of a new $15 million media blitz launched by an advocacy group allied with the White House, may be the most overt attempt during the current debate in Congress over the war to link the attacks with Iraq.
Six years later, the Sept. 11 attacks remain the touchstone of American politics, the most powerful force that can be summoned on behalf of an argument even as a nation united in their aftermath today stands divided on their meaning. While Washington spent yesterday's anniversary debating the U.S. involvement in Iraq, it struggled to define the relationship between the war there and the worldwide battle with al-Qaeda and other extremists.
During the second day of hearings featuring Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, the echoes of Sept. 11 reverberated through the chamber. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a presidential candidate, got Petraeus to repeat his belief that Iraq is the "central front in the war on terror." Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), another White House aspirant, complained about the timing of the hearing because it "perpetuates this notion that, somehow, the original decision to go into Iraq was directly related to the attacks on 9/11."
Some Republicans described the offshoot group al-Qaeda in Iraq as the dominant threat on the ground, playing down the broader sectarian battle for power at the heart of the conflict. Some Democrats called the war a distraction from the hunt for Osama bin Laden, playing down al-Qaeda's determination to use Iraq to strike a blow against U.S. interests.
(Continued here.)
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