# Bush ordered fake letter linking Iraq to 9/11- When is lying a crime? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 6, 2008, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-ordered-fake-letter-linking-iraq-to-9-11-when-is-lying-a-crime/458989 "2008-08-06T02:39:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-ordered-fake-letter-linking-iraq-to-9-11-when-is-lying-a-crime/458989/21 "2008-08-06T10:28:42Z")
[QUOTE=Bill Door] If only others were as scrupulous as you are regarding the provenance of purported documentation. Is this a new phenomenon? [/QUOTE] At this point the weight I’m prepared to give Bush’s word against the reporting of a Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist is not in the same universe. I just ask myself - given the existence of the letter and its provenance - who is more likely to be lying? Fairies didn’t write it, I don’t believe the Interim Govt would do it off their own bat, - the question answers itself. ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-ordered-fake-letter-linking-iraq-to-9-11-when-is-lying-a-crime/458989/22 "2008-08-06T11:28:01Z")
[QUOTE=Baldwin] For my money, it’s treason. Doesn’t meet the Constitutional definition, but I’d still like to see him shot. [/QUOTE] Odd; I don’t even believe in capital punishment, but some things bring out this abrupt emotional reaction in me. Like if I hear about somebody using dirty tricks to try and prevent people from voting – I don’t know what the legal penalty is, but emotionally I go right to execution. When I calm down, I don’t want anybody dead, but goddamn it, whether you’re a Democrat, Republican or what have you, wouldn’t it be nice for our so-called leaders to be held accountable for something? ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-ordered-fake-letter-linking-iraq-to-9-11-when-is-lying-a-crime/458989/23 "2008-08-06T12:01:04Z")
**John Mace** writes: > [@](#): > > So, if this faked letter actually existed, why wasn’t it all over the newspapers? Maybe it was, and I just don’t remember it. This was my reaction, as well. Not only don’t I recall this letter, it’s not mentioned in any of the books or articles I’ve read rehashing the events leading up to the war. I don’t recall anti-Bush writers mentioning it as another example of White House duplicity, and I can’t recall any Bush supporters bringing this up as bolstering the case for war. I simply have no recollection of this at all. If this was a forgery to lead us into war, it seems to have been singularly unmemorable. Yet the linked article claims this was a big deal: > [@](#): > > The mission was carried out, the letter was created, popped up in Baghdad, and roiled the global newcycles in December, 2003 (conning even venerable journalists with Tom Brokaw). The mission is a statutory violation of the charter of CIA, and amendments added in 1991, prohibiting CIA from conduction disinformation campaigns on U.S. soil. Sometimes I feel as if I’ve stepped into a parallel universe. ---
**Author:** ![Oy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bc8723/32.png) [@Oy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oy)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-ordered-fake-letter-linking-iraq-to-9-11-when-is-lying-a-crime/458989/24 "2008-08-06T13:15:43Z")
Duplicate post. ---
**Author:** ![Oy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bc8723/32.png) [@Oy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oy)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-ordered-fake-letter-linking-iraq-to-9-11-when-is-lying-a-crime/458989/25 "2008-08-06T13:16:15Z")
Watch the first story [here](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3096434/). The letter was released and made the news at the time. Suskind has tapes of his interviews. I’m hoping that Congress will supoena these. I have a strong suspiscion that Suskind will show up if they do, tapes in hand. John Dean, in a follow-up interview, believes, based on his reading, that Cheney set it up quite deliberately so that deniability would end with him, rather than extend to Bush. I’m not sure if that part of the story is included in the link above. This is going to be HUGE. I hope he has backups of the tapes and life insurance. ---
**Author:** ![Oy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bc8723/32.png) [@Oy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oy)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-ordered-fake-letter-linking-iraq-to-9-11-when-is-lying-a-crime/458989/26 "2008-08-06T13:36:48Z")
Ah, look for the ‘Worse the Watergate’ story on the Story Column to the left of the screen on the MSN page I linked to in my previous post for an analysis of the possible impact of these revelations. ETA: in this interview, we have John Dean, former official of the Nixon Administration, pointing out that if we continue with another Republican administration, we will continue with the same kind of abuses of justice! ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-ordered-fake-letter-linking-iraq-to-9-11-when-is-lying-a-crime/458989/27 "2008-08-06T13:40:21Z")
What did the 9/11 Commission have to say about this letter? I assume they must’ve dismissed it since they concluded there was no Iraq/al-Qaeda connection. ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-ordered-fake-letter-linking-iraq-to-9-11-when-is-lying-a-crime/458989/28 "2008-08-06T13:47:14Z")
[QUOTE=CalMeacham] This was my reaction, as well. Not only don’t I recall this letter, it’s not mentioned in any of the books or articles I’ve read rehashing the events leading up to the war. I don’t recall anti-Bush writers mentioning it as another example of White House duplicity, and I can’t recall any Bush supporters bringing this up as bolstering the case for war. I simply have no recollection of this at all. If this was a forgery to lead us into war, it seems to have been singularly unmemorable. Yet the linked article claims this was a big deal: Sometimes I feel as if I’ve stepped into a parallel universe. [/QUOTE] Check the date. December 2003. It wasn’t around as part of the lead-up to war although they continually tried to make hay with the debunked Atta/Iraq Prague connection. [link](http://www.aim.org/media-monitor/iraqs-link-to-mohammed-atta/) > [@](#): > > Safire reported in his column that Walter Pincus of the Washington Post, a long-time favorite of CIA director George Tenet, had taken the lead in shooting down the Atta-Iraq link. Pincus wrote in March that “hard intelligence to support the Baghdad-bin Laden connection is somewhere between ‘slim’ and ‘none.’” Newsweek, which is owned by the Post, took up that line, calling the story “very flimsy” and an “embarrassing mistake.” > > But Prague officials reconfirmed the story this past June. They said they had expelled the Iraqi agent in question in April of last year for engaging in spying and suspected terrorist activities. After U.S. intelligence officials tried to discredit the story, the Prague Post reported that the Czech envoy to the UN confirmed that the meeting had taken place. Czech officials were offended when Newsweek implied that they had retracted the earlier report. Newsweek hadn’t bothered to confirm its story with them. > > Recently the Los Angles Times quoted a senior Bush administration official as saying that the White House thinks the initial reports were accurate. It doesn’t identify the source, but in the past “senior administration official” has usually meant the President’s National Security Advisor, in this case Condoleeza Rice. (This claim was conclusively debunked in the 9/11 report.) The faked by whoever letter surfaced in the hands of the Coalition’s pet Iraqi’s as part of the frenzied thrashing around for justification once it became clear the Balsawood Drones of Death etc did not exist and we’d entered the happy, happy Mission Accomplished Wonderland. ---
**Author:** ![Oy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bc8723/32.png) [@Oy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oy)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-ordered-fake-letter-linking-iraq-to-9-11-when-is-lying-a-crime/458989/29 "2008-08-06T13:48:33Z")
This letter was published after we had been in Iraq for some time. It was in December 2003. I think the political intent was to deflect criticism because no WMD had been found. I’m looking at the report right now, but the part I’m looking at right now seems to be viewing immediate post 9/11 findings. I’ll look further as time allows. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-ordered-fake-letter-linking-iraq-to-9-11-when-is-lying-a-crime/458989/30 "2008-08-06T13:49:41Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] What did the 9/11 Commission have to say about this letter? I assume they must’ve dismissed it since they concluded there was no Iraq/al-Qaeda connection. [/QUOTE] It may well have come out too late to be considered by them. They issued their final report and closed up shop in [August 2004](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11_Commission), and this letter was leaked in December 2003, apparently. So the question is when did the 9/11 Commission conclude their information-gathering? It would hardly be surprising if they’d done so at least 8 months before their final report was issued. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-ordered-fake-letter-linking-iraq-to-9-11-when-is-lying-a-crime/458989/31 "2008-08-06T13:55:22Z")
[QUOTE=Baldwin] For my money, it’s treason. Doesn’t meet the Constitutional definition, but I’d still like to see him shot. [/QUOTE] I’d prefer to see him hanging from a lamppost on Pennsylvania Avenue. Esthetic differences, I guess. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-ordered-fake-letter-linking-iraq-to-9-11-when-is-lying-a-crime/458989/32 "2008-08-06T13:56:47Z")
> [@](#): > > Check the date. December 2003. It wasn’t around as part of the lead-up to war although they continually tried to make hay with the debunked Atta/Iraq Prague connection. Although I say “articles rehashing the lead-up tio the war”, note that I said “in articles and books rehasdhing this” – which would have made it relevant. I’m not saying that I don’t recall hearing about this during the buyild-up to the war. I don’t recall hearing about it AT ALL, just like John Mace, apparently. ---
**Author:** ![Oy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bc8723/32.png) [@Oy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oy)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-ordered-fake-letter-linking-iraq-to-9-11-when-is-lying-a-crime/458989/33 "2008-08-06T13:58:03Z")
I just searched the entire 9/11 Commission report. The name Habbush, supposedly the author of this letter, is not mentioned once. I searched on the name Iraq as a control to verify that my search was working; it showed up 158 times, Afghanistan 456 times. ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-ordered-fake-letter-linking-iraq-to-9-11-when-is-lying-a-crime/458989/34 "2008-08-06T14:02:39Z")
[QUOTE=CalMeacham] Although I say “articles rehashing the lead-up tio the war”, note that I said “in articles and books rehasdhing this” – which would have made it relevant. I’m not saying that I don’t recall hearing about this during the buyild-up to the war. I don’t recall hearing about it AT ALL, just like John Mace, apparently. [/QUOTE] I recall it but the Daily Telegraph is an English paper. Now it’s almost impossible to google anything on the subject older than yesterday but I did find it being touted of Free Republic type forums as a gotcha at the time. [Freeper nonsense](http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1039898/posts) ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-ordered-fake-letter-linking-iraq-to-9-11-when-is-lying-a-crime/458989/35 "2008-08-06T14:08:49Z")
Readers of the several thousand “Let’s hang Bush from the nearest church steeple!” threads already know the tireless efforts I have put forth to demonstrate that lying is, in general, not a crime. If these allegations are correct, using the CIA in this manner violates Executive Order 12333, which relates to, _inter alia_, the limitations of the CIA in domestic work (Assuming you can show that this was solely intended to influence domestic policy). But since the President is the person responsible for issuing and modifying executive orders, I would opine that it’s well-nigh impossible for him to violate one, since he can always effectively write “…except in this case…” across the bottom of whatever order he’s putatively violating. I am unaware of any law this action violates. ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-ordered-fake-letter-linking-iraq-to-9-11-when-is-lying-a-crime/458989/36 "2008-08-06T14:15:25Z")
[QUOTE=Bricker] Readers of the several thousand “Let’s hang Bush from the nearest church steeple!” threads already know the tireless efforts I have put forth to demonstrate that lying is, in general, not a crime. If these allegations are correct, using the CIA in this manner violates Executive Order 12333, which relates to, _inter alia_, the limitations of the CIA in domestic work (Assuming you can show that this was solely intended to influence domestic policy). But since the President is the person responsible for issuing and modifying executive orders, I would opine that it’s well-nigh impossible for him to violate one, since he can always effectively write “…except in this case…” across the bottom of whatever order he’s putatively violating. I am unaware of any law this action violates. [/QUOTE] There are moral crimes, and legal crimes. Some of the worst crimes don’t technically violate a statute. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-ordered-fake-letter-linking-iraq-to-9-11-when-is-lying-a-crime/458989/37 "2008-08-06T14:22:40Z")
[QUOTE=Baldwin] There are moral crimes, and legal crimes. Some of the worst crimes don’t technically violate a statute. [/QUOTE] Well, sure. But those are the ones that won’t allow you to shoot or hang the perp either, right? ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-ordered-fake-letter-linking-iraq-to-9-11-when-is-lying-a-crime/458989/38 "2008-08-06T14:24:05Z")
[QUOTE=Baldwin] There are moral crimes, and legal crimes. Some of the worst crimes don’t technically violate a statute. [/QUOTE] Hey, don’t queer the pitch. We all want Obama to inherit this magical ‘Anything I do is legal if I say so because I am Ra, the Sun-King. Tremble and fear me.’ interpretation of the constitution that coincidentally became very popular about 8 years ago. I remember the times the Prez could barely get a quiet blow-job. If only he’d thought to write himself one of those little, ‘I am the Great Clin-Ton, kneel before my Mighty Member’ notes to himself first. ---
**Author:** ![Oy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bc8723/32.png) [@Oy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oy)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-ordered-fake-letter-linking-iraq-to-9-11-when-is-lying-a-crime/458989/39 "2008-08-06T14:36:39Z")
In case you weren’t kidding, no we don’t want Obama or anyone else to inherit this magical interpretation of the constitution. And that is the primary reason we do not want McCain to win the election, because right now Justice is stacked with True Believers, and if McCain is elected, it will probably stay that way. I’ll do him the credit of saying McCain wouldn’t have created it, but he probably won’t clean it up. As an American citizen, I am not a happy camper right now. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-ordered-fake-letter-linking-iraq-to-9-11-when-is-lying-a-crime/458989/40 "2008-08-06T14:38:27Z")
[QUOTE=Bricker] I am unaware of any law this action violates. [/QUOTE] And as it has been noted numerous times impeachment can be done for any reason whatsoever. A revelation such as this might actually rise to a level sufficient to motivate reluctant congresscritters to do just that (note I said “might”…I am not sure Bush having an orgy in the Oval Office with ObL pouring the drinks would move them to action). At this point does impeaching Bush make any practical sense? Obviously not…they’d be lucky to finish and do it before he left office anyway. I would say however that it could prepare the public consciousness for an actual, legal prosecution, of Bush for _other_ matters down the road. As such I think this could be a valuable piece of evidence. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-ordered-fake-letter-linking-iraq-to-9-11-when-is-lying-a-crime/458989.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-ordered-fake-letter-linking-iraq-to-9-11-when-is-lying-a-crime/458989.md?page=3)