At Last, It’s Clear: No Tie Between Hussein and 9/11

Re “No Proof Connects Iraq to 9/11, Bush Says,” Sept. 18: President Bush and the current administration insult the intelligence of the American people when they claim that they did not make a connection between Saddam Hussein, Iraq and the terrorists’ attacks of 9/11 in speeches prior to the war on Iraq. But let me be very clear:

I am purposely stating that Bush is a liar. No accident of language in that sentence. The meaning is clear.

Joyce E. McCabe

Orange

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Your front-page article on Bush saying that there was no proof connecting Iraq to 9/11 is a breath of fresh air after all the false claims supporting the Iraq war and takeover. However, the article reports that Bush still claims Hussein had ties to Al Qaeda.

Hussein may have been a ruthless dictator, but he definitely feared (as do all strongmen) those who could gain power to pose a threat to his regime -- not only Al Qaeda but Kurds and Shiites. Being a secular despot, he especially feared the power of religious fanatics. He’d therefore rigorously suppress Al Qaeda so it wouldn’t overthrow him and impose an Islamic state, as it did in Afghanistan.

In this respect, at least, Hussein was an inadvertent ally in our war on terrorism. Our president’s pronouncements on Hussein’s Al Qaeda ties are just another example of his misleading claims for getting us into the Iraq quagmire. And now, with Hussein gone, Al Qaeda operatives have massively infiltrated or come out in Iraq, or both, to harass and harm not only our own but innocent Iraqis also.

Ken Kvammen

Newport Beach

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So, national security advisor Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have finally been cornered into admitting they had no proof of any link between Hussein and 9/11 (Sept. 17). The same day this story was printed, former chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix stated that it now appears Hussein probably destroyed his weapons of mass destruction in 1991-92.

All of Bush’s reasons for waging war on Iraq therefore have been rendered null and void. No link between Hussein and 9/11, no weapons of mass destruction, no nuclear devices and clearly no imminent threat all add up to a war based on lies and one very powerful reason to rid ourselves of Bush in 2004.

John Berwick

Los Angeles

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All I know is, if a Democratic president had frittered away a huge budget surplus, misled the public -- either by design or through ignorance -- regarding claims for going to war, diminished our believability in the world and then groveled before the United Nations for nation-building assistance, Republican hotheads would be beating the drums of impeachment.

Alleged Democratic leadership: Are you in a coma or what?

Jim Allen

West Hollywood