Vol. 56, Issue 1 - Howard University School of Law

Cognitive Foreign Policy66% (October 2002), and to 57% (February 2003). 121 A commentatorinterpreted the polls:It suggests that whatever support there is for a war against Iraq, itowes much to the erroneous belief of at least half of the Americanpeople that it was Saddam Hussein’s operatives who flew the planesinto the World Trade Center and Pentagon. If it is disturbing toconclude that many Americans may be supporting a war on the basisof a falsehood . . . . 122After the invasion, a September 2003 Washington Post poll discoveredthat 69% believed Hussein was involved in the 9/11 attackseven though the “Bush administration and congressional investigatorssay they have no evidence of [an Iraqi connection to 9/11].” 123 TheSenate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) concluded that therewas no evidence of Iraq involvement in 9/11. 124 In an April 2007 60Minutes interview, former Central Intelligence Agency (“CIA”) DirectorTenet was asked about Vice President Cheney’s allegations thatrecurrently linked al-Qaeda and Iraq and gainsaid the CIA was sourcingthe accusation. 125 Tenet stated: “We could never verify that therewas any Iraqi authority, direction, control, complicity with 9/11 or anyother operational act against America, period.” 126 False perceptionstarried. In 2006, 62% of Americans who supported the war did sobecause they still thought Iraq was connected to 9/11. 127Suggestive of how immoderately delusive public perceptionsformed, Professor Nzelibe recounted “President Bush informed the121. THE PEW RESEARCH CTR. FOR THE PEOPLE & PRESS, U.S. Needs More InternationalBacking, Feb. 20, 2003, http://www.people-press.org/2003/02/20/us-needs-more-internationalbacking/;see also Note, War, Schemas, and Legitimation: Analyzing the National DiscourageAbout War, 119 HARV. L. REV. 2099, 2108-09 (2006); Pryor, supra note 93 (claiming that 65%believed al-Qaeda and Iraq were “two closely collaborating allies”); Dana Milbank & ClaudiaDeane, Hussein Link Lingers in Many Minds, WASH. POST, Sept. 6, 2003, at A01 (explaining that69% believing Hussein was involved in 9/11).122. Pryor, supra note 93.123. Milbank & Deane, supra note 121; see also Dana Milbank, Bush Disavows Hussein-September 11th Link, WASH. POST, Sept. 18, 2003, at A18.124. S. SELECT COMM. ON INTELLIGENCE, 109TH CONG., POSTWAR FINDINGS ABOUT IRAQ’SWMD PROGRAMS AND LINKS TO TERRORISM AND HOW THEY COMPARE WITH PREWAR ASSESS-MENTS 105-13 (2006), available at http:// intelligence.senate.gov/phaseiiaccuracy.pdf [hereinafterSSCI/2006/FINDINGS].125. 60 Minutes, George Tenet: At the Center of the Storm (CBS television broadcast Apr. 29,2007), available at http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-18560_162-2728375.html.126. Id. There was no attack on U.S. interests and the substantial reference to a possibleattack was that Iraq had supposedly been “casing” Radio Free Europe for five years. Bejesky,Intelligence, supra note 21, at 857-58.127. McLeod, supra note 95, at 136 (describing how 15 % of those who believed there was noIraqi connection to 9/11 supported the war).2012] 23