9/11 to Star in Tonight's Speech Nothing New

UPDATE at end of post.

According to Tim Grieve of The War Room, expect lots of implied connections between Saddam's Iraq and Al Qaeda from Bush's speech tonight. Sneak peek:

"The terrorists can kill the innocent – but they cannot stop the advance of freedom," Bush will say. "The only way our enemies can succeed is if we forget the lessons of September 11 … if we abandon the Iraqi people to men like Zarqawi … and if we yield the future of the Middle East to men like Bin Laden."

Later, Bush will say: "We are fighting against men with blind hatred -- and armed with lethal weapons -- who are capable of any atrocity. They wear no uniform; they respect no laws of warfare or morality. They take innocent lives to create chaos for the cameras. They are trying to shake our will in Iraq – just as they tried to shake our will on September 11, 2001. They will fail."

Since there's no context, we can't say what, exactly, Bush™ is up to. But given that his June 18 radio address implied a connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda, I'm not expecting a big surprise tonight. Remember this?

As we work to deliver opportunity at home, we're also keeping you safe from threats from abroad. We went to war because we were attacked, and we are at war today because there are still people out there who want to harm our country and hurt our citizens. Some may disagree with my decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power, but all of us can agree that the world's terrorists have now made Iraq a central front in the war on terror. These foreign terrorists violently oppose the rise of a free and democratic Iraq, because they know that when we replace despair and hatred with liberty and hope, they lose their recruiting grounds for terror.

Um, a little clarification there.... We kinda sorta made Iraq into a bloody terror buffet, according to the CIA's recent report. Club Iraq offers mostly Saudi-born guests terrorists the best training ground on the planet. As the New York Times' Douglas Jehl reported,

The officials said the report spelled out how the urban nature of the war in Iraq was helping combatants learn how to carry out assassinations, kidnappings, car bombings and other kinds of attacks that were never a staple of the fighting in Afghanistan during the anti-Soviet campaigns of the 1980's. It was during that conflict, primarily rural and conventional, that the United States provided arms to Osama bin Laden and other militants, who later formed Al Qaeda.

Thanks, Mr. Bush! Helping breed and train terrorists for future bloodshed!

If Bush™'s previous "major policy" speeches are any indication, this one will tell us nothing new. Just lots of button-pushing bullshit full of appeals to fears and the flag. Please, Mr. Bush, prove me wrong. People are dying.

UPDATE: Maybe a little conflation of 9/11 and Saddam, but not much, and a couple of whoppers, on which more later, if there's even a point. Basically, same shit, different speech. The plan? Resolve! We're training Iraqi troops! Great.... How's that comin'? Got any numbers for us, other than some undifferentiated "160,000"? Any idea how long that training regimen takes?

And the downward poll-slide continues....