FOREIGN POLICY -- FREUDIAN SLIP

FOREIGN POLICY -- FREUDIAN SLIP?: Apparently, the Bush administration
has conflated Saddam Hussein with Osama bin Laden
(http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/whitehouse/la-na-gop10sep10,1,3026441.story?coll=la-news-politics-white_house)
so many times that even its own officials have become confused.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld mixed up the names of bin Laden and
Hussein
(http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-rummy11sep11,1,2859808.story?coll=la-headlines-world)
twice in a speech at the National Press Club on Friday, at one point
referring to Hussein as the leader of the al Qaeda-backed Northern
Alliance in Afghanistan. At another point Rumsfeld said, "Saddam Hussein, if
he's alive, is spending a whale of a lot of time trying to not get
caught. And we've not seen him on a video since 2001." He meant bin Laden.
Rumsfeld might just be following the White House script. After all, in
2002 Bush said, "You can't distinguish
(http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/09/20020925-1.html)
between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror."