https://www.businessinsider.com/george-bush-liar-cia-mohammed-atta-prague-911-iraq-invasion-2023-3
George W. Bush misrepresented our work at CIA to sell the Iraq invasion. It's time to call him what he is: 'A liar.'
George W. Bush on the phone.
Eric Draper/National Archives
MS
As told to Mattathias Schwartz
Mar 20, 2023, 5:48 PM PDT
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Two former CIA officials spoke to Insider before the 20th anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq. They gave a firsthand account of the George W. Bush administration's attempts to misrepresent intelligence and assert a connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. In fact, the evidence assembled by the CIA suggested that no such connection existed.
One of these false connections was a supposed meeting that had occurred between Mohamed Atta, the chief 9/11 hijacker, and Iraqi intelligence agents in Prague. In December 2001, then-Vice President Dick Cheney went on "Meet the Press" and falsely claimed that the meeting was "pretty well confirmed." A 2003 CIA cable states that "not one" official within the US government had evidence that the Prague meeting actually happened. Nevertheless, it became a key part of the administration's public case for launching the Iraq invasion on March 20, 2003, a conflict that would cost an estimated 300,000 lives.
The officials' combined years of service at CIA totals up to more than four decades. Their identities are known to Insider, and are referred to below by pseudonyms due to the sensitivity of their positions. Their discussion has been edited for brevity.
