.MaddowBlog: Why VP Pence’s falsehood about Soleimani and 9/11 matters
The day after Donald Trump directed the military to target and kill Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, Vice President Mike Pence tried to bolster the White House’s case with a specific claim. The Quds Force general, Pence argued, “assisted in the clandestine travel to Afghanistan of 10 of the 12 terrorists who carried out the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.” How Mr. Pence arrived at this number and this account is unclear.
It’s true that the 9/11 Commission found that some of terrorists passed through Iran, but there’s nothing connecting Soleimani to the hijackers or Iran’s border policies. On the contrary, the 9/11 Commission “found no evidence that Iran or Hezbollah was aware of the planning for what later became the 9/11 attack.”Indeed, the very idea doesn’t appear to make sense: there’s no reason Soleimani, a leader of Shiite force, would “assist” Sunni terrorists.
It’s possible that there are legal considerations at play. As a Washington Post analysis noted, the administration may be looking for legal justifications for last week’s airstrike, and it likely sees value in tying the offensive to the 2001 AUMF , which empowers the White House to use “appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.
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