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Hatch puts spin on 'brainless' comment
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| Parent(s) |
Candidate
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| Contributor | RP |
| Last Edited | RP Feb 22, 2006 08:44pm |
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| Category | General |
| Media | Newspaper - Salt Lake Tribune |
| News Date | Wednesday, February 22, 2006 08:15:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | Sen. Orrin Hatch backpedaled Tuesday from a recent claim he made asserting that deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was supporting al-Qaida, and that "Nobody with brains" would deny the connection.
The assertion was striking not so much for its audacious tone, but because it contradicted the findings of multiple intelligence reviews, including the 9-11 Commission's report and a review by the Senate Intelligence Committee, on which Hatch sits.
Appearing before a group of Iron County, Utah, business leaders Saturday, Hatch said: "And, more importantly, we've stopped a mass murderer in Saddam Hussein. Nobody denies that he was supporting al-Qaida," he said, according to The Spectrum newspaper in St. George. "Well, I shouldn't say nobody. Nobody with brains."
On Tuesday, Hatch said he may have misspoken at the event, and he was speaking of conditions in post-Hussein Iraq and the terrorist network led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
"Saddam clearly had a long history of supporting terrorists, but I was not talking about any formal link between Saddam and al-Qaida before the war," Hatch said in a statement. "Instead, I pointed out that the current insurgency in Iraq includes al-Qaida, under the leadership of al-Zarqawi, along with former elements of Saddam's regime." |
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