Judge for yourself. Allawi was interviewed by Jim Lehrer on PBS. Cue the transcript:
JIM LEHRER: What would you say to somebody in the United States who questions whether or not getting rid of Saddam Hussein was worth the cost of more than a thousand lives now and billions and billions of U.S. dollars?
PRIME MINISTER IYAD ALLAWI: Well, I assure you if Saddam was still there, terrorists will be hitting there again at Washington and New York, as they did in the murderous attack in September; they'll be hitting also on other places in Europe and the Middle East.
Clearly Allawi has no scruples about repeating a long-discredited lie (about Saddam's link to 9-11) in service of Bush-Cheney '04 re-election efforts (Cheney: vote for us or die). And he seem to have forgotten Beslan, Madrid, Bali...
but hey, he's our sonofabitch.
Meanwhile, back in reality, Gary Hart speaks.
1 comment:
The basic point though remains - Saddam sufferred no al qaeda in Iraq because it risked his own control. The claims by the administration were either willfully incompetent or blatant deception - somewhere in between, most likely.
And for Allawi to have believed in those ties at one point is fine. But to repeat the talking point today, is nonsensical. No excuses can be made.
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