The invaluable Tom Maguire has an interesting post deconstructing Jay Rockefeller’s October 9, 2002, speech explaining why he voted to authorize the Iraq War. Rockefeller is now – and was then – the Vice Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Here’s another take on Rockefeller’s speech. Rockefeller has lately taken to claiming that Iraq “had nothing to do with Osama bin Laden, it had nothing to do with al-Qaida.” We won’t dwell here on the fact that evidence points rather conclusively in the opposite direction. Two points: Rockefeller in his 2002 speech warned that:
And:
I called Rockefeller’s office this summer and asked which terrorist groups the West Virginia Democrat was talking about. Wendy Morigi, Rockefeller’s communications director, responded.
Perhaps. But one week before his floor speech, Rockefeller suggested something quite different in an interview with the Charleston Gazette. He said: “If you go pre-emptive, do you cause Hussein to strike where he might not have? He is not a martyr, not a Wahabbi, not a Muslim radical. He does not seek martyrdom. But he is getting older,” Rockefeller told the paper. “Maybe he is seeking a legacy by attacking Israel or using al-Qaeda cells around the world.” [Emphasis added.] One month before the war began, Senator Rockefeller spoke of a “substantial connection between Saddam and al Qaeda.” In some interviews Rockefeller did say that he hadn’t seen evidence of close ties between Iraq and al Qaeda. But asked about an Iraq-al Qaeda relationship by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on February 5, 2003, Rockefeller agreed with Republican Senator Pat Roberts that Abu Musab al Zarqawi’s presence in Iraq before the war and his links to a poison camp in northern Iraq were troubling. Rockefeller continued:
One final note. The resolution that Rockefeller supported specifically mentioned the presence of al Qaeda fighters in Iraq:
Remind me, who isn’t being straight with the American public about the Iraq War?
