Sweep It All Up: 9/11 Memos Revealed

"You can't distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror."
--President George W. Bush (September 25, 2002)

Kudos to Andrew Sullivan for pointing his readers to this... Even more definitive proof that Rumsfeld and others began the buildup to war with Iraq on the morning of September 11th, courtesy of a resourceful blogger and the Freedom of Information Act.

Possibly even more powerful in getting public support for war in Iraq than the false WMD intelligence (because at least many in Congress did believe that one) was the lie that Iraq had ties to Al Qeada and the 9/11 attacks. So powerful was this lie that even as of a few months ago, polls showed a significant percentage of Americans still believe Saddam/Iraq were responsible for the attacks. This lie was subtlely laid out in statements by administration officials like Vice President Cheney, statements that they now deny ever having said. But while the PR campaign for this lie didn't begin until September 2002 (after all, you don't introduce new products in August), the real desire for the war began as far back as '97/'98 and the actual push for the war began on September 11, 2001 as smoke still rose out of the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

The push for war in Iraq on September 11th mostly revolves around Donald Rumsfeld. In accounts noted by the 9/11 Commission, Richard Clarke, and Bob Woodward, the Secretary of Defense was quite vocal that day to many that a link between Saddam and the attacks be found that could be used as a justification for war. The famous quote, "Go massive . . . Sweep it all up. Things related and not.", was made public in a 2002 CBS News report. Now documents have surfaced that verify all of this.

Thad Anderson, a blogger at OutragedModerates.org, submitted a Freedom of Information Act request last year for Department of Defense staffer Stephen Cambone's notes from meetings with Donald Rumsfeld on the afternoon of 9/11 (the ones cited by the 9/11 Commission). Two weeks ago, he received those notes and have laid them all out in his blog (see previous link). He has also uploaded the documents as a photo set on Flickr. Among the instructions Cambone wrote down in these notes were to "get info fast" to "judge whether [we can] hit SH [Saddam Hussein] at the same time" and "not only UBL [Usama bin Laden]". Cambone does note on the same page that it is "hard to get a good case". Further down that same page is the instruction to "Go massive - Sweep it all up. Things related and not." This page is dated 2:40 PM on September 11, 2001.

Here is that page-



You can download a torrent of all the documents- here. Or see his blog for links.

At the conclusion of his post on this, Sullivan said:
"My confidence that there was no deliberate misleading of the American people after 9/11 just slipped a notch."

Wow, really, ya think? [*hits head on desk*]

I know I am probably just preaching to choir here, but to say this is one of the greatest crimes in modern American history is, to me, an understatement. These people had an obsession with Iraq and even as I stood on a rooftop in downtown Manhattan staring at the huge cloud of smoke that was the World Trade Center, and while others in government rushed around trying to figure out what happened, all Rumsfeld and his companions were thinking about was their vendetta against Saddam Hussein. And though they knew their case was false, they presented it to the American people and succeeded a year later into morphing bin Laden into Hussein. They sent troops off to war without a plan. They have spent almost half a trillion dollars trying to get it right. They have cost tens of thousands of people their lives. And yet the true villains of 9/11 remain free. So many questions from that day remain unanswered. And worldwide terrorism has increased. If this is not a crime... what is?

They will likely never be held accountable for it, but it's important to know the truth.

Thank god for the Freedom of Information Act, that's for sure.