Inside Information

A Republican congressman from North Carolina told CNN on Wednesday that the "evidence is clear" that Iraq was involved in the terrorist attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001.

"Saddam Hussein and people like him were very much involved in 9/11," Rep. Robin Hayes said.

Told no investigation had ever found evidence to link Saddam and 9/11, Hayes responded, "I'm sorry, but you must have looked in the wrong places."

Hayes, the vice chairman of the House subcommittee on terrorism, said legislators have access to evidence others do not.

This is the same argument advanced by Colin Powell a coupla weeks before the invasion ("I think I have better information than the inspectors. I think I have more assets available to me than the inspectors do.")

Complete hogwash, of course. But regular readers of this blog know that it's often fun to play, "What if he's [or, in the case of Condi Rice, "she's"] not lying?"

So, what if Hayes is not lying? That means that legislators have access to "evidence" that Bush Administration executives -- i.e., those in charge of formulating and implementing policies, and who've acknowledged on many different occasions that Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11 -- do not have access to.

It means that the investigators -- i.e., those in charge of determining how those tasked with protecting against such attacks failed to do so, and how it can be prevented from happening again -- don't have access to all relevant information needed to perform these duties.

It means that hundreds of other legislators, with access to the same "clear" evidence, have failed to notify the public of the existence of this evidence -- even Republican legislators, whom one would think could derive some decent PR mileage out of such evidence.

And it means that our legislators are as secretive as our executives when it comes to the sharing with the public that pays its salaries information that might be of public interest.

Yeah...it's probably better that he's lying.

Posted by Eddie Tews at July 1, 2005 07:03 PM