The Misleading "Central Front"

Much as George W. Bush misled the United States into the Iraq War with false claims about WMD and links to al-Qaeda, he has kept the nation there with false claims about Iraq as the “central front” in the “war on terror,” says journalist Robert Parry.

Most Americans who have followed the twists and turns of the Iraq War would agree that George W. Bush misled the nation into the conflict with false claims about WMD and Saddam Hussein’s links to al-Qaeda. But it’s less understood that Bush never stopped deceiving the public.

Indeed, one of President Bush’s favorite lines – telling the American people to listen to what the enemy says and thus to know that al-Qaeda considers Iraq the “central front” in the “war on terror” – has been every bit as misleading as his earlier false assertions about WMD.

Parry says that even as Bush was making these assertions, U.S. intelligence was intercepting documents showing that the real “central front” was in al-Qaeda’s base camps along the Pakistan-Afghan border.

Watch the clip.



Read further The High Cost of Bush’s Iraq Gambit.