Invoking 9/11 May Temper Views on Iraq War

By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 5, 2004; Page A05

At last week's Republican convention, President Bush and Vice President Cheney repeatedly linked the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the war in Iraq, largely abandoning the rationale offered when the Bush administration invaded the Persian Gulf country.

Announcing the invasion on March 19, 2003, Bush said in a nationwide televised address that the United States "will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder." Two days earlier, Bush had asserted in another address to the nation, "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."

But no such weapons were found after the invasion, and the subject was only fleetingly mentioned from the podium in Madison Square Garden. Instead, the war on Iraq was presented as a part of a seamless thread that stemmed directly from the terrorism of the Sept. 11 attacks. "We have fought the terrorists across the earth -- not for pride, not for power, but because the lives of our citizens are at stake," Bush said, before listing Iraq along with the struggle against terrorist groups in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

Ever since the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the Bush administration has searched for explanations for how to defend the war, such as the need to bring freedom to the Middle East and to end the brutal nature of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's government. With Bush's convention speech, the administration laid out its most sweeping case to date -- and campaign officials are betting voters will buy this retooled version of the need to go to war.

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