Snow Whitewashes Bush’s False Statements About Hussein/Zarqawi Link
Snow Whitewashes Bush’s False Statements About Hussein/Zarqawi Link
At yesterday’s White House press briefing, Tony Snow whitewashed President Bush’s claim that Saddam Hussein “provided safe-haven” to al Qaeda terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Snow said that Bush indicated there was “no operational relationship” between Zarqawi and Saddam. Snow added, “we just don’t have that kind of granularity in terms of the relationship. And therefore, we’re not going to outrun the facts.” Watch it:
Actually, President Bush did say that Hussein was providing assistance to Zarqawi:
I always said that Saddam Hussein was a threat…He was a threat because he provided safe-haven for a terrorist like Zarqawi…
Last week, the Senate Intelligence Committee, chaired by Pat Roberts (R-KS), definitively concluded Bush’s claim is inaccurate. From pg. 109 of their report:
Saddam Hussein attempted, unsuccessfully, to locate and capture al-Zarqawi and…the regime did not have a relationship with, harbor, or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi.
So not only was Hussein not providing Zarqawi “safe haven,” he was actually trying to capture Zarqawi. While Snow claims that the “granularity of their relationship” is unknown, the Senate Intelligence Committee has concluded there was no relationship at all. Will the White House ever acknowledge the facts?
Transcript:
QUESTION: So all of your comments about a relationship between Saddam Hussein and Zarqawi, you just knew they were there. Did you know what they were up to? I mean, how far does that go?
SNOW: I don’t know. We’ll have to look at the documents and continue to ask the questions.
QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)
SNOW: How so?
QUESTION: There was a lot of rhetoric coming out of the White House in the build-up to the war and since that there was this relationship between Saddam Hussein and Zarqawi and thus linking them together.
SNOW: No.
The argument has been that Saddam Hussein was a supporter and sponsor of terror. And we talked more often about, for instance, the fact that people who went in and committed suicide bombings against Israelis were getting paid bounties and that Saddam was working as best he could to try to support and foment terror.
QUESTION: No relationship with Al Qaida. No relationship with Zarqawi.
SNOW: That’s right. No operational relationship, as far as we can tell.
But they were there. And Zarqawi was committing acts of terror while he was in Baghdad, but we don’t — look, if we had the goods, we’d share them, but we don’t have the goods that would demonstrate…
QUESTION: (inaudible) know about this?
SNOW: I don’t know. I don’t know if he knew about it.
What we have been unable to demonstrate or discover is whether they’re sitting around in the map room, spreading out the map, saying, OK. You bomb there.
We just don’t have that kind of granularity in terms of the relationship. And therefore, we’re not going to outrun the facts.
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44 Responses to “Snow Whitewashes Bush’s False Statements About Hussein/Zarqawi Link”
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If these reporters know the questions they will ask why don’t they push back with the quotes that everyone knows about that show exactly what they said? To ask the questions is a good thing but to let them dance is a sign of lazy work. Nail their feet to the ground with their own words.
September 14th, 2006 at 11:52 amSame old crapola: “Just because he said it doesn’t mean he said it”.
September 14th, 2006 at 11:52 amSame old crapola: “Just because he said it doesn’t mean he said it”.
September 14th, 2006 at 11:52 am“Granularity”? As in, is there a grain of truth in anything Snow is saying?
September 14th, 2006 at 11:54 amJane, ya beat me to it.
September 14th, 2006 at 12:02 pmWell Cheney says he hasn’t read the report, if he did, he would just “disagree” with it anyways as he does with all contradictory evidence. This BS charade just gets better and better.
September 14th, 2006 at 12:02 pm…”granularity in terms of the relationship…”
I think T. S’no Balls must have taken Turdblossom to the beach last night. Granularity in that relationship would smart a tad!
September 14th, 2006 at 12:07 pmSnow Whitewashes Bush’s False Statements
That’s what they hired him to do . . . . and he likes it.
September 14th, 2006 at 12:11 pmI don’t understand why Clinton was impeached for lying, yet Bush does it on a DAILY basis. It’s getting tiring. Why can’t the main stream (conservative) media at least do what the Daily Show does and play the clip to PROVE what they are denying is a LIE. It’s like they just roll over, “oh sorry we must have misheard.” AGH.
September 14th, 2006 at 12:15 pm” And therefore, we’re not going to outrun the facts.”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
No Tony, you and your boss are NOT going to outrun the facts as you have been trying to do for 6 years.
September 14th, 2006 at 12:17 pmFacts..ha! We don’t need no stinking facts! I abslutely dare the bastards to actually say this. Wouldn’t surprise me a bit if they did. God bless Ann Richards.
September 14th, 2006 at 12:17 pmSnow job is at it again… I mean, at what point do we actually get someone competent back in that position? (Probably at the same point where we get a president capable of forming a sentence…)
September 14th, 2006 at 12:23 pmI wanna know how many Democrats knew in the build up to the war that the details didn’t matter and that “transforming the mideast” was the main goal.
September 14th, 2006 at 12:23 pm“False Statements” = LIES
September 14th, 2006 at 12:23 pmand they really don’t give a shite… good thing we do…
keep on keeping track of it all…
What’s up with the ThinkProgress server?
September 14th, 2006 at 12:24 pmYou liberals, all you ever care about are the facts. Don’t you understand? The facts embolden terrorists. If it weren’t for our president lying to us day after day, America would be overrun by terrorists. His lies are keeping terrorists from killing your families! Is that what you want? Terrorists coming here and killing your families?!! Just so you can hear the president say a few honest words for the first time in his life?!!!
You America-hating wacko moonbat liberal panty-waist commie Satan-worshipping sodomite….Arggggh!!!
September 14th, 2006 at 12:25 pmis tony thinking he can sound intelligent with that?
what the hell is that supposed to mean?
4 results for: granularity
September 14th, 2006 at 12:28 pmgran‧u‧lar  [gran-yuh-ler] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–adjective
1. of the nature of granules; grainy.
2. composed of or bearing granules or grains.
3. showing a granulated structure.
—Related forms
gran‧u‧lar‧i‧ty, noun
gran‧u‧lar‧ly, adverb
On a variation of an old saying,
You can lead a Republican to the facts, but you can’t make ‘em think.
September 14th, 2006 at 12:31 pmFun with headlines. This could also read:
Snow White Washes Bush’s False Statements
September 14th, 2006 at 12:32 pmWhen will Snow realize that “you can’t polish a turd!”.
September 14th, 2006 at 12:36 pmOnce again, the Bush administration falls-back on lying–its their modus operandi. And the religious right tolerates this.
September 14th, 2006 at 12:36 pmI guess the White House Director of Fact Checking was sleeping on the job again.
September 14th, 2006 at 12:38 pmHoly Guacamole! Tony might as well have a neon sign on his forehead (and he does have room for it) that says ‘I AM LYING!!’ Gawd! Don’t tell me that anyone could believe this pile of dookie?!? It is just so STUPID, STUPID, STUPID!
September 14th, 2006 at 12:39 pmMore bull shit bush and South Korean Pres. on CNN now….Head’s up folk’s…Blessings
September 14th, 2006 at 12:40 pmUnder that line of thought, the US provided a “safe haven” for terrorists like Mohammed Atta and his ilk.
They trained here. They lived here. They were granted US vista. And the US Government did nothing about it.
September 14th, 2006 at 12:41 pmWhat Snow said in defense of Bush’s statement that was contrary to the Senate Intelligence Committee report is functionally equal to Cheney still saying that we just don’t know if the reports of Atta meeting with Saddam’s people in Prague are true, keeping alive that false claim.
If a statement is deliberately misleading it is a lie. That is straight out of the dictionary. Bush is lying, Cheney is lying and Snow is lying.
September 14th, 2006 at 12:45 pmHoly Guacamole! Tony should have a neon sign on his forehead (he has room for it) saying ‘I AM LYING!!” Does he really believe that this is going to be accepted by anyone? It is just so STUPID, STUPID, STUPID!!
September 14th, 2006 at 12:47 pmWHOOPS! I thought they lost my first post, so I did a do-over. Sorry!
September 14th, 2006 at 12:50 pmWhat’s all this talk about Snow White Washing Bush ?
Oh, never mind …
September 14th, 2006 at 12:51 pmThere is no defense for being caught in a Lie. Bush Co. has lied so much the last 5 years that they can’t speak without tripping over one of their old lies.
September 14th, 2006 at 12:55 pmWhat’s all this talk about Snow White Washing Bush ?
I thought this was a family site!
Oh … never mind..
September 14th, 2006 at 12:55 pmBush in 2004:
“Some folks look at me and see a certain swagger which in Texas we call ‘walking.”‘
Alternate version:
“Some folks listen to me and hear utter bullshit with only an occasional grain of truth dropped in by accident, which in Texas we call ‘talking.”‘
Apologies to the good folks of Texas who aren’t lying sacks of crap.
September 14th, 2006 at 1:03 pmAh, but much like Cheney, Snow and Bush probably haven’t read the report yet, so it doesn’t actually count.
September 14th, 2006 at 1:09 pmAmerica’s Least Wanted
Can I get a job making $150,000/year (and a “funded” Swiss bank account)by lying my butt off to the American public please? I can be really good at it!
September 14th, 2006 at 1:47 pm#29 — I saw the same “Snow White” funny — These people should be encrypted with a microchip that provides electric shock every time they lie. If so, and if Cheney had any hair, it would be a giant singed afro. I could not force myself to watch MTP Sunday because, what is the point? What possible credible information ever comes out of that guy’s sneering piehole — NOTHING, that’s what. Snow is also a boorish and transparent clown. Might as well put a red frightwig on him, big floppy shoes, and a ball nose.
September 14th, 2006 at 2:47 pmI hate to admit that I like John Aravosis’s (choking back the puke) take on it: using the same logic, Dick Cheney (or Bush) had a relationship with Mohammed Atta (or any of the 9/11 hijackers).
September 14th, 2006 at 3:18 pmwhen is the press corps going to boycott the LIE sessions? Anything snowjob says should be replyed with a: Proove it tony…..’I'll get back to you on that will indicate it’s a LIE.’
September 14th, 2006 at 3:27 pmSorry, Badmoodman! :-) For once I got in on a thread early.
What’s with the + signs in some of our names? That didn’t happen to me yesterday, although I saw some others with +s.
September 14th, 2006 at 3:29 pmLet’s see who will be blamed next. Bush as blamed Clinton, Tenet and soon he will blame Harry Potter. Notice the Bush Administration doesn’t admit to any wrong it was always done by someone else. For 5 years the mistakes were done by Clinton and Tenet as the Bush team did nothing. Even the UN found out that Bush used fake information about Iran just as they did with Iraq. The only question is can Bush and the GOP supporters be trusted at their word as they’ve been lying for 5 years and counting. The world leaders move on working together without the United States and it’s lying President and Vice President. We have a liar representing the US in the UN and the world knows it.
September 14th, 2006 at 3:41 pmTony Snow is squandering what little credibility he has left. And to think he used to be a journalist.
September 14th, 2006 at 4:30 pmJeez, the layers and layers of bullshit… Didn’t some military brass recently tell WaPo that Zarqawi was their best psyops program to date? If the best they’ve got now is an infered connection between Saddam and a mythical creation (Zarqawi), they are pathetic indeed. What a joke!
September 14th, 2006 at 8:48 pmHere, somebody should ask Tony to comment on this:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ wp-dyn/ content/ article/ 2006/ 04/ 09/ AR2006040900890_pf.html
September 14th, 2006 at 8:53 pmgranularity?
vagueries?
Does he have a study group with GWB every morning using the Big Book of Making Up Stupid-Assed Words?
September 15th, 2006 at 12:23 amSnow sure became (what’s that other disgraced former Bushite Press Secretary’s name?)…
…o’h yeah Scott McClellan…
…really fast…
…I thought it would take at least six months…
…but I was wrong…
…wow, Snow’s done a heckuva job becoming Scott…
…hasn’t he?
September 15th, 2006 at 2:26 pm