{"id":22389,"date":"2026-02-12T13:20:58","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T18:20:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=22389"},"modified":"2026-02-17T12:10:54","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T17:10:54","slug":"never-forget-bushs-bait-and-switch-iraq-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2026\/02\/12\/never-forget-bushs-bait-and-switch-iraq-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Never Forget Bush\u2019s Bait-and-Switch Iraq War"},"content":{"rendered":"

Also published by Zero Hedge<\/a> (39,000 views, 340 comments), Counterpunch<\/a>, Eurasia Review<\/a>,\u00a0
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Never Forget Bush\u2019s Bait-and-Switch Iraq War<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/h1>\n

By James Bovard<\/p>\n

A few presidencies ago, Washington politicians used boundless political and intellectual chicanery to drag America into a ruinous war.\u00a0 Thousands of Americans died and scores of thousands of Iraqis perished due to the official myth of\u00a0 Saddam Hussein as the Twentieth Hijacker.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Last November, Axios published new damning information on the role of Saudi government officials in bankrolling the 9\/11 attacks on New York City\u00a0 and the Pentagon.\u00a0 Private lawsuits against the Saudi regime\u00a0 \u201cunearthed evidence showing one Saudi official \u2014 who acknowledges aiding two men who became hijackers \u2014 made a drawing of a plane and a mathematical formula<\/a> that allegedly could have been used to fly into the World Trade Cente<\/strong>r.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was only the latest stunning revelation in a coverup that will celebrate its 25th birthday this year.<\/p>\n

In 2002 and early 2003, the Bush administration rushed to exploit 9\/11 to justify invading Iraq. But there was a problem with that con job. A 2002 FBI memo stated that there was \u201cincontrovertible evidence that there is support for these [9\/11 hijacker] terrorists within the Saudi Government.\u201d\u00a0<\/strong> A joint House-Senate congressional investigation found extensive evidence that the Saudi government, not Saddam Hussein, propelled the hijackers. The Bush administration succeeded in suppressing the key 28 pages of that congressional report on the Saudi role on 9\/11.\u00a0 Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC)<\/strong> became a leading proponent of declassifying those 28 pages, declaring in 2013: \u201cIf the 9\/11 hijackers had outside help \u2014 particularly from one or more foreign governments \u2014 the press and the public have a right to know what our government has or has not done to bring justice to all of the perpetrators.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those 28 page were finally released (mostly) in 2016, revealing how Saudi government officials directly financed and provided diplomatic cover for several of the hijackers in the U.S. shortly before they unleashed havoc.<\/p>\n

Truth delayed is truth defused.\u00a0 Blocking the evidence of the Saudi bankrolling of 9\/11 enabled the Bush administration to kill tens of thousands of Iraqis.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Bush administration sold the Iraq war as payback for 9\/11.<\/strong> While false claims by President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney on Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) have received ample coverage, the Bush Saudi-Iraqi Bait-and-Switch has faded into memory.<\/p>\n

In a memo Bush sent on March 18, 2003, notifying Congress that he was launching a war against Iraq, Bush declared that he was acting \u201cto take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bush invoked this justification even though his administration had never offered a shred of evidence tying Saddam to 9\/1<\/strong>1. Bush and team continually threw out new accusations and then backed off, knowing that few people were paying close enough attention to recognize that previous charges had collapsed like a houses of cards.<\/p>\n

In the first months after 9\/11, there was little mention of Iraq in the public pronouncements by Bush and his top official<\/strong>s. But in his State of the Union address on January 29, 2002, Bush stunned many people by announcing that Iraq, along with Iran and North Korea, were part of an \u201caxis of evil.\u201d Since the war on terrorism had stratospheric support levels in the polls from the American people, the best way to sanctify a war against Iraq was to redefine it as part of the war on terrorism. Bush declared on September 25, 2002: \u201cAl Qaeda hides, Saddam doesn\u2019t, but the danger is, is that they work in concert. The danger is that al Qaeda becomes an extension of Saddam\u2019s madness and his hatred and his capacity to extend weapons of mass destruction around the world. . . . You can\u2019t distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror. They\u2019re both equally as bad, and equally as evil, and equally as destructive.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next day, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announced that the U.S. possessed \u201cbulletproof \u201d evidence linking Saddam and Al Qaeda. But it was a bullet that could never be exposed to sunlight. An earlier alleged link between Iraqi agents and hijacker Mohamed Atta meeting in Prague had collapsed, with the story disavowed by both the CIA and the Czech government.<\/p>\n

On October 7, 2002, Bush, speaking to a selective audience of Republican donors in Cincinnati, laid out his logic: \u201cWe know that Iraq and the Al Qaida terrorist network share a common enemy\u2014the United States of America. We know that Iraq and Al Qaida have had high-level contacts that go back a decade… And we know that after September the 11th, Saddam Hussein\u2019s regime gleefully celebrated the terrorist attacks on America.\u201d\u00a0 The fact that some Iraqis cheered the carnage on September 11 proved Saddam could team up with Al Qaeda for a second 9\/11.<\/p>\n

The link between Saddam and Al Qaeda then took a three-month recess, returning in the 2003 State of the Union address, when Bush declared that \u201cSaddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of Al Qaeda.\u201d Bush reached for the ultimate hot button: \u201cImagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons and other plans, this time armed by Saddam Hussein. It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three days later, when Bush was directly asked by a journalist at a White House press conference, \u201cDo you believe that there is a link between Saddam Hussein, a direct link, and the men who attacked on September the 11th?\u201d Bush replied: \u201cI can\u2019t make that claim.\u201d Yet, that did not stop him from endlessly making the inference.<\/strong><\/p>\n

But the Bush administration\u2019s new \u201cevidence\u201d failed the laugh test. The Los Angeles Times revealed: \u201cThe Bush administration\u2019s renewed assertions of links between Iraq and Al Qaeda are based largely on the murky case of a one-legged Al Qaeda suspect who was treated in Baghdad after being wounded in the war in Afghanistan.\u201d Time noted of Bush\u2019s message on Saddam and Al Qaeda: \u201cIf there was no visible evidence to link the two, he just used that fact to argue his point: the danger is everywhere, even if we can\u2019t see it; the threat is growing, even if we can\u2019t prove it. The Administration\u2019s argument for war is based not on the strength of America\u2019s Intelligence but on its weakness.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the days after 9\/11, when pollsters asked Americans who they thought had carried out the 9\/11 attacks, only 3 percent of respondents suggested Iraq or Saddam Hussein as culprits<\/strong>. But by February 2003, 72 percent of Americans believed that Hussein was \u201cpersonally involved in the September 11 attacks.\u201d Shortly before the March 2003 invasion, almost half of all Americans believed that \u201cmost\u201d or \u201csome\u201d of the 9\/11 hijackers were Iraqi citizens. Only 17 percent of respondents knew that none of the hijackers were Iraqis. Seventy-three percent believed that Saddam \u201cis currently helping al-Qaeda.\u201d<\/p>\n

American soldiers were hit with more concentrated doses of propaganda than private citizens. A 2006 poll of American troops revealed that 85% believed<\/a> the U.S. mission sought\u00a0 “to retaliate for Saddam\u2019s role in the 9\/11 attacks.\u201d\u00a0 That belief likely helped spur some of atrocities against Iraqi civilians by U.S. troops.<\/p>\n

U.S. intelligence agencies always knew that the Saddam-9\/11 link was a political concoction by pro-war politicians<\/strong>. In July 2004, the Senate Intelligence Committee issued a 511-page report that recognized that the CIA accurately\u00a0 concluded that \u201cto date there was no evidence proving Iraqi complicity or assistance\u201d in the 9\/11 attacks. The report noted that the CIA\u2019s accurate judgments on Saddam, Al Qaeda, and the non-link to 9\/11 \u201cwere widely\u00a0 disseminated [prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq], though an early version of a\u00a0 key CIA assessment was disseminated only to a limited list of Cabinet members and some sub-Cabinet officials in the administration.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neither George Bush nor Dick Cheney were ever held liable for their lies that led to carnage in Iraq. Perhaps that is the biggest lesson that Washington policymakers take from the Iraq War.<\/strong><\/p>\n

On the campaign trail in 2015 and 2016, Donald Trump sounded as if he recognized the vast folly of invading Iraq to topple Saddam.\u00a0 But Trump\u2019s promise to \u201cend the endless wars\u201d seems like a hundred years ago.<\/strong>\u00a0 An Associated Press poll last month found that 56% of Americans believed that Trump had already \u201cgone too far” with his military interventions abroad. But will pro-war politicians and political appointees fabricate new pretexts to attack Iran or elsewhere?<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Also published by Zero Hedge (39,000 views, 340 comments), Counterpunch, Eurasia Review,\u00a0         Never Forget Bush\u2019s Bait-and-Switch Iraq War By James Bovard A few presidencies ago, Washington politicians used boundless political and intellectual chicanery to drag America into a ruinous war.\u00a0 Thousands of Americans died and scores of thousands of Iraqis perished […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22390,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[449,10,19,47,36,4774,628,364],"class_list":["post-22389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-911-attacks","tag-bush","tag-cheney","tag-fbi","tag-iraq","tag-saddam","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-walter-jones"],"yoast_head":"\nNever Forget Bush\u2019s Bait-and-Switch Iraq War - James Bovard<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"President Bush swayed Americans to support attacking Iraq by portraying Saddam Hussein as the 20th hijacker on 9\/11\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2026\/02\/12\/never-forget-bushs-bait-and-switch-iraq-war\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Never Forget Bush\u2019s Bait-and-Switch Iraq War - 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The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \\\"the roving inspector general of the modern state\\\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \\\"one-man truth squad.\\\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism & Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \\\"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\\\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. 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The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \"the roving inspector general of the modern state\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \"one-man truth squad.\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism & Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. 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