Of all the misleading speeches about terrorism given by the Bush team in the lead-up to the 9/11 anniversary, the prize for chutzpah goes to Donald Rumsfeld.

In a pitch last week to the American Legion, Rumsfeld cited the failure of “a great many” to recognize the rise of Hitler and fascism in 1939. He then accused unnamed pols of eagerness to appease “vicious extremists.” Then he charged that “moral or intellectual confusion” is sapping the war on terrorism and the fight in Iraq.

Moral and intellectual confusion?

Rumsfeld’s text and the pre-9/11 speeches by President Bush are riddled with both – to the detriment of America’s future safety. What makes these speeches so unnerving is the possibility the Bush team really believe everything they are saying. If so, you should truly fear for America’s security over the next three years.

This was the moment for the president to try to unite the country behind a long and continuing struggle against a wide variety of terrorist threats. Instead, he sent Rumsfeld (and Dick Cheney) out to accuse administration critics of “appeasement” – a red-meat term aimed at his political base.

Can Rumsfeld name one prominent critic, on either side of the aisle, who wants to appease al-Qaida? The great debate is over how best to thwart Islamist terrorists, not invite them to dinner. What many Bush critics fear is that White House policies play into al-Qaida’s hands.

That fear wasn’t allayed by the speeches of the president and his team.

Constant references to Hitler mislead the public about the nature of the struggle. The ideology of radical Islamist terrorist groups is indeed evil, but World War II analogies delude Americans into thinking the struggle can be won by conventional battles or bombing.

The president’s own counterterrorism strategy – released last week – describes how al-Qaida has morphed into loose networks of terrorists with no central command structure. One of the biggest potential threats comes from disaffected Europeans, like the Britons of Pakistani Muslim descent accused of having planned multiple plane bombs. The British cell was caught via determined efforts by British police and intelligence officials, who cooperated across borders. This is exactly the kind of “law enforcement” Rumsfeld derided in his speech.

Rumsfeld – and President Bush – also denounced the idea that you can “negotiate a separate peace with (Sunni) extremists.” This is another straw man. No one of either party is proposing such a thing.

However, the president talks of using diplomacy to prevent Shiite Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Yet he lumps “Shiite extremists” together with al-Qaida (even though Iran and al-Qaida despise each other). Here is where the intellectual confusion of the White House approach shines through like a 150-watt bulb.

The White House can’t decide whether it wants to change Iran’s regime (which Bush includes in his “axis of evil”), or change Iranian behavior on the nuclear issue – which would require recognition of Tehran.

Rumsfeld’s denunciation of “moral confusion” would seem to indicate that Bush policy is regime change. Rumors are swirling that Bush wants to bomb Iran’s nuclear research sites before he leaves office.

Yet if we bomb Iran, Tehran is bound to retaliate against U.S. interests in Iraq, where it has many agents and is allied with Iraq’s Shiite leaders. Bombing Iran would doom any slim American hopes of salvaging stability in Baghdad. It would also thrill al-Qaida and its offshoots by providing an endless stream of new Muslim recruits.

The contradiction between our Iraq and Iran policies displays intellectual confusion at its worst.

But the maximum level of confusion in the 9/11 speeches revolves around the claim that “Iraq … is the central front in our fight against terrorism.” Yes, Iraq has become a training center for jihadi terrorists – which it wasn’t before Saddam fell. But the reason for Iraq’s descent into postwar hell is the administration’s arrogance and incompetence – which, of course, the president does not admit in his speeches.

This denial creates a black hole of moral and intellectual dishonesty at the heart of the Bush rhetoric. I happen to agree with the president that if we pull out of Iraq now we will provide a bonanza for al-Qaida in terms of bases and recruitment. But since he won’t take responsibility for his mistakes, the president has little chance of rallying a majority around his Iraq policy.

Why should Americans believe he will do better in the future? Especially when his team denounces critics as “appeasers” – and he paints a simplistic picture of the coming struggle.

The worst of it is that the president may indeed believe what he says.