After all, US leaders lied about so much in the aftermath of the 2001 attacks. They lied about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction; lied about why Iraq had to be attacked, and then about the course of the war there; and the head of the federal Environmental Protection Agency at the time, Christie Whitman, even lied about the air quality in lower Manhattan after the attack, leading thousands of New York City children to suffer from severe respiratory problems.