Congressman J.D. Hayworth apparently had not yet received the memo when he wrote this:
The Bush haters are also befuddled that most Americans believe Saddam Hussein had a role in the September 11 attacks. In fact, there is a definite 9/11-Saddam link, although probably not a direct one. Setting aside the question of how much contact there was between al Qaeda and Saddam, it was Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990 that set off a chain of events that led inexorably to 9/11.
Don’t take my word for it. Here is what Time magazine wrote in the October 1, 2001 issue, published shortly after the 9/11 attacks: “for [bin Laden] the real casus belli is the U.S. troop presence in his country dating to the military buildup before the 1991 Gulf War precipitated by Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait” [emphasis added]. In police terms, Saddam would be an accessory to the 9/11 attacks.
If you want to argue it in those terms, it was really the CIA-backed overthrow of Mossadegh in Iran fifty years ago which led “inexorably” to the rise of militant Islamic fundamentalism. And therefore to 9/11. But I don’t imagine the Congressman wants to go there…