This afternoon, President Bush recycled the false claim he has made many times prior to and since the Iraq war began, inciting fear that Iraq has some connection to 9/11.

Prior to the war, Bush referred to Saddam Hussein “often in the same breath with Sept. 11,” reinforcing “an impression that persists among much of the American public.”

Today, Bush engaged in a similar rhetorical maneuver. “The same people that attacked us on September the 11th is a crowd that is now bombing people, killing innocent men, women and children, many of whom are Muslims,” Bush said.

Watch it:

“It was the second time in two weeks that Bush has made the link in an apparent attempt to transform lingering fear of another U.S. terrorist attack into backing for the current buildup of U.S. troops in Iraq.” While many in the media gloss over such false statements, Jonathan Landay of McClatchy Newspapers debunked it, just as he did frequently prior to the war. Landay wrote that Bush’s claim is misleading on two counts:

1) Prior To The War, Al Qaeda Was Not Operating In Iraq. “Al Qaida in Iraq didn’t emerge until 2004. While it is inspired by Osama bin Laden’s violent ideology, there’s no evidence that the Iraq organization is under the control of the terrorist leader or his top aides, who are believed to be hiding in tribal regions of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan.”

2) Even Now, Al Qaeda Is Not The Main Source Of Instability. “While U.S. intelligence and military officials view al Qaida in Iraq as a serious threat, they say the main source of violence and instability is an ongoing contest for power between majority Shiites and Sunnis, who dominated Saddam Hussein’s regime.”

False claims cultivated the war in Iraq, and unfortunately continue to sustain it.

The AP reports, “The FBI is gathering and sorting information about Americans to help search for potential terrorists, insurance cheats and crooked pharmacists, according to a government report obtained Tuesday.”

Records about identity thefts, real estate transactions, motor vehicle accidents and complaints about Internet drug companies are being searched for common threads to aid law enforcement officials, the Justice Department said in a report to Congress on the agency’s data-mining practices. [...]

The report, sent to Congress this week, marked the department’s first public detailing of six of its data-mining tools, which look for patterns to catch criminals. The disclosure was required by lawmakers when they renewed the USA Patriot Act in 2005. All but one of the databases — the one to track terrorists — have been up and running for several years.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office announced tonight that the House will vote later this week on a bill that would begin the responsible redeployment of U.S. troops within 120 days and complete redeployment by April 1, 2008. The Gavel has more details.

“faced a new firestorm on Tuesday sparked by a report he may have misled lawmakers in 2005 about civil liberty violations by the FBI.” Rep. Jerrold Nadler “called for the appointment of a Special Prosecutor to investigate the prima facie case that Gonzales provided false statements to Congress, noting that misleading Congress is a serious crime.”

“Attorney General Gonzales has shown an apparent reckless disregard for the rule of law and a fundamental lack of respect for the oversight responsibilities of Congress,” said Rep. Nadler. “The man entrusted with enforcing our nation’s laws must also abide by them — and Mr. Gonzales has apparently failed in that duty. Providing false, misleading or inaccurate statements to Congress is a serious crime, and the man who may have committed those acts cannot be trusted to investigate himself. A Special Prosecutor is necessary to investigate this and the countless other violations of the law apparently committed by this Executive Branch.”

AP reports:

A Senate appropriations panel chaired by Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., refused to fund $4.8 million in the vice president’s budget until Cheney’s office complies with parts of an executive order governing its handling of classified information.

At issue is a requirement that executive branch offices provide data on how much material they classify and declassify. That information is to be provided to the Information Security Oversight Office at The National Archives.

Cheney’s office, with backing from the White House, argues that the offices of the president and vice president are exempt from the order because they are not executive branch ”agencies.”

The funding cut came as the appropriations panel approved 5-4 along party lines a measure funding White House operations, the Treasury Department and many smaller agencies.

Digg It!

The percentage of Americans who believe President Bush should not have commuted Scooter Libby’s prison sentence, according to a new Gallup poll.