Caption On President Bush's Portrait Linking 9/11 to Iraq to be Corrected

On December 19th the Smithsonian Institution's National Portrait Gallery unveiled a new portrait of President Bush. Independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont took exception to the wording of the caption that accompanied the portrait. A passage in the caption states that Bush's tenure was marked by "the attacks on September 11, 2001, that led to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq."

Sanders wrote a letter to the gallery's director, Martin Sullivan. In the letter Sanders writes, "The notion... that 9/11 and Iraq were linked, or that one 'led to' the other, has been widely and authoritatively debunked ... Might I suggest that a reconsideration of the explanatory text next to the portrait of President Bush is in order[?]"

The claim, in fact, has been debunked by many including President Bush. "I am often asked why we are in Iraq when Saddam Hussein was not responsible for the 9/11 attacks," Bush said in September of 2006. "The answer is that the regime of Saddam Hussein was a clear threat."

Talking Points Memo reports that today Sullivan, who attributed the wording of the caption to limited space, wrote back to Sanders and assured the Senator that the error would be corrected.

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