Or, there they go again ...

 

Stephen F. Hayes himself weighs in on the 9/11 Panel report in the June 28 issue of The Weekly Standard.

IT'S SETTLED, APPARENTLY. Saddam Hussein's regime never supported al Qaeda in its "attacks on America," and meetings between representatives of Iraq and al Qaeda did not result in a "collaborative relationship." That, we're told, is the conclusion of two staff reports the September 11 Commission released last Wednesday.

But the contents of the documents have been widely misreported. Together the new reports total 32 pages; one contains a paragraph on the broad question of a Saddam-al Qaeda relationship, the other a paragraph on an alleged meeting between the lead hijacker and an Iraqi agent. Nowhere in the documents is the "Al Qaeda-Hussein Link...Dismissed," as Washington Post headline writers would have us believe. In fact, Staff Statement 15 discusses several "links."

Hayes's article is, of course, a pack of lies. I walked through the famous Staff Statement 15 here. It did not discuss several "links," in quotation marks or otherwise. It says there may have been three meetings between an Iraqi intelligence official and al Qaeda in the early 1990s, none of which resulted in any sort of collaboration or relationship. It says that Osama bin Laden made some requests of Saddam Hussein's government, and that these requests were ignored. So, it is far more accurate to say that the panel dismissed an Iraq-al Qaeda link than it is to say the panel discussed several links.

Hayes's spin implies that the panel thought there might be some kind of relationship or collaboration. Instead, the panel clearly said there was no relationship or collaboration. Period.

It never, as the Associated Press maintained, "bluntly contradicted" the Bush administration's prewar arguments.

Hoo boy, there's a juicy one. I could blog all day about what a big lie that is. Just a few of Bush's prewar arguments that have been bluntly contradicted:

In October 2002, Bush said, "Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases." That was false.

Bush said, in his January 2003 State of the Union address, "Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of al Qaeda." That was false.

Bush said, on February 8, 2003, "Iraq has also provided Al Qaeda with chemical and biological weapons training." That was false.

Powell, in his U.N. speech prior to the Iraq War, talked of the "sinister nexus between Iraq and the Al-Qaeda terrorist network." False again. [Matthew Rothschild, "Bush and Cheney Out on a Limb of Lies," The Progressive]

There's a lot more where those came from. I've been running into them all day. Sometime over the weekend I want to do a roundup of exposed Bushie lies about Iraq. But first I want to finish snarking about Stephen Hayes.

Hayes goes on to complain that most news media are misreporting what the Panel actually said. In fact, it's Hayes and his ilk (Glenn Reynolds being a major ilk) who are misreporting what the Panel actually said. For once, the media as a whole seem to be at least in the ball park, with the usual exceptions (e.g., Faux News).

Clinton's Revenge! Here's a righty blogger whose faith will not be shaken:

Let me repeat, Saddam had longstanding ties to terrorists including al Qaeda, sponsored terrorism, carried out terrorism, and cheered on terrorism. The press likes to pretend that this is a new argument invented by the Bush administration to trump up reasons for war, forgetting their own reports in the 90s about such connections and the Clinton administration’s claims of such connections.

You know these people are desperate when they fall back on the Clinton Administration as an authority. And like Andrew McCarthy, whom he credits as a source, our righty blogger drags up a November 1998 federal indictment of Osama bin Laden and  Muhammed Atef for the August 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. But I didn't realize how deliciously ironic this was until I read this letter to the editor in today's New York Times:

To the Editor:

When former Secretary of Defense William Cohen testified before the 9/11 commission, he discussed the Clinton administration's rationale for the 1998 bombing of the pharmaceutical factory in Sudan. He said that there was intelligence that Osama bin Laden had put money into "this military industrial corporation; that the owner of the plant had traveled to Baghdad to meet with the father of the VX program."

This supported the Clinton administration's thesis that VX gas was being produced there. In other words, it was evidence of Iraqi involvement with weapons of mass destruction.

How can you say that "there was never any evidence of a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda"? The Clinton administration deemed it to be a link.

MARGARET ATEN
Eden Prairie, Minn., June 17, 2004

Yes, my loves, she's talking about the "aspirin factory"! The one the right claims Clinton bombed only in a wag-the-dog attempt to divert attention from the Monica Lewinsky scandal! Could it be that the righties will resurrect the aspirin factory and turn it back into a bomb-making facility? My heart is going pitty-pat at the thought!

 

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State Department spokesman Adam Ereli told reporters he did not know anything about the information that Putin said Russia passed on. No such information was communicated from Russia through the State Department, he said.

"Everybody's scratching their heads," said one State Department official, who asked not to be named. [Reuters]

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I am not exactly sure what the problem is with your site? I have browsed to the site and conducted tests, and everything seems to be in working order.

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I'm not sure this news story is the unalloyed victory for the antiwar left that much of the antiwar left seems to think it is. On the one hand, you have the 9/11 commission stating there's no hard evidence that al Qaeda and Ba'athist Iraq worked together. This much we knew, whatever the Vice President might say. (And by the way, see Steve Hayes for evidence that not all proponents of this thesis are reality-denying hacks.) On the other hand, we also have the 9/11 commission stating that al Qaeda actively sought cooperation with Ba'athist Iraq, and that Ba'athist Iraq gave the notion serious consideration. Note that we don't know that Ba'athist Iraq actively rejected the proposal -- there's simply no evidence of followup. [Emphasis added]

It should be noted, however, that the Commission also seemed to have demanded an inordinately high standard of evidence, unable to establish definitively, in their view, links between al Qaeda and a number of attacks long presumed to have been perpetrated by them:

 

§          "We have seen strong but indirect evidence that his organization did in fact play some as yet unknown role in the [June 1996] Khobar [Towers] attack."

 

§          "Whether Bin Ladin and his organization had roles in the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center and the thwarted Manila plot to blow up a dozen U.S. commercial aircraft in 1995 remains a matter of substantial uncertainty."

 

Given the nature of counter-terrorist intelligence, critics might argue that the Commission's apparent search for proof that meets the reasonable doubt standard of the U.S. criminal justice system is unreasonable.

A lieutenant-colonel in the DIA [U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency] who specialized in terrorism and the Muslim world also ridiculed the claims connecting Iraq and al-Qaeda, adding that administration officials relied on evidence provided by Laurie Mylroie in her book The War Against America: Saddam Hussein and the World Trade Center Attacks: A Study of Revenge. "From her book," he said, "It was evident she hadn't spent one day in the Middle East but she was close with Wolfowitz and as a result we had a guy on staff [at the DIA] whose job for two years was to debunk her allegations." [Nir Rosen, Asia Times, October 4, 2003]

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In publishing a report that cited no evidence of a collaborative relationship between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda, the Sept. 11 commission actually meant to say that Iraq had no control over the network, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said on Friday.

As the White House strove to curb potential damage to President Bush's credibility on Iraq, his closest aide on international security denied any inconsistency between the bipartisan panel's findings and Bush's insistence that a Saddam-Qaeda relationship existed.

What I believe the 9-11 commission was opining on was operational control, an operational relationship between al Qaeda and Iraq which we never alleged," Rice said in an interview with National Public Radio.

This is just plain pathological. The panel was not "opining" that Saddam had no control over al Qaeda. It "opined" that Saddam had squat to do with al Qaeda. But let's go now to what the commission actually said. I will focus on all mentions of Iraq.

This is on page 3, which deal with the early history of the al Qaeda organization, ca. 1989-1992:

With al Qaeda as its foundation, Bin Laden sought to build a broader Islamic army that also included terrorist groups from Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Saudi Arabia and Oman, Tunisia, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Morocco, Somalia, and Eritrea. Not all groups from these states agreed to join, but at least one from each did.

That doesn't tell us much, but I expect the Kool-Aiders to attempt to make something out of it, as soon as they notice it.

We find the next mention of Iraq on page 5:

Bin Laden also explored possible cooperation with Iraq during his time in Sudan, despite his opposition to Hussein's secular regime. Bin Laden had in fact at one time sponsored anti-Saddam Islamists in Iraqi Kurdistan. The Sudanese, to protect their own ties with Iraq, reportedly persuaded Bin Ladin to cease this support and arranged for contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda. A senior intelligence officer reportedly made three visits to Sudan, finally meeting Bin Ladin in 1994. Bin Ladin is said to have requested space to establish training camps, as well as assistance in procuring weapons, but Iraq apparently never responded. There have been reports that contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda also occurred after Bin Ladin had returned to Afghanistan, but they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship. Two senior Bin Ladin associates have adamantly denied that any ties existed between al Qaeda and Iraq. We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States.

For a study in desperation, see how Andrew McCarthy managed to twist this paragraph around for National Review Online. "The commission's cursory treatment of so salient a national question as whether al Qaeda and Iraq confederated is puzzling," he sniffs. "Given that the panel had three hours for Richard Clarke, one might have hoped for more than three minutes on Iraq."

Well, of course, the panel did spend more than three minutes on Iraq. This document is the summary, not the investigation itself. It doesn't say much, but maybe that's because there isn't much to say.

McCarthy drops dark hints of contradiction by other public testimony, but isn't specific about what that was. Then he says of the paragraph above,

Just taken on its own terms, this paragraph is both internally inconsistent and ambiguously worded. First, it cannot be true both that the Sudanese arranged contacts between Iraq and bin Laden and that no "ties existed between al Qaeda and Iraq." If the first proposition is so, then the "[t]wo senior Bin Laden associates" who are the sources of the second are either lying or misinformed.

Now, I've been around the block a few times, and I know for a fact that people can have "contacts" and "meetings" without forming a "tie." I'm told this happens in bars all the time, but I wouldn't know about that. However, many times over the years I've interviewed for jobs and spent a lovely couple of hours chatting with interviewers, and never heard from them again. So even though I had "contacts" with those companies, I left the interviews with no "ties" to the companies.

Yet Mr. McCarthy says this is not possible. If there is any sort of contact or meeting of any kind, then there must be a "tie." If that's true, there are a number of companies that owe me back pay. 

Look, there's nothing ambiguous at all about this. A "senior intelligence official" met with al Qaeda, once with bin Laden, in 1994. Bin Laden made some requests; Iraq did not respond. No "collaborative relationship" was formed. I read English pretty durn good; that means they weren't collaborating. That means they weren't working together. That means they did not establish ties.

It doesn't mean they were working together but that Iraq wasn't in control, as Condi claimed. It means they weren't working together. The American Heritage dictionary says that the word "ties" in this context means "To bring together in relationship; connect or unite: friends who were tied by common interests; people who are tied by blood or marriage." As a transitive verb, "ties" means to be fastened or attached.

There was no relationship. There was no attachment. There were no ties.

After a little more obfustication, McCarthy goes on to complain that the panel ignored a 1998 indictment obtained by the Justice Department against bin Laden that accused bin Laden of working with Iraq to develop weapons.

Does McCarthy know what an "indictment" is? It's an accusation; a document that details what crime a person is charged with. By itself, it's not proof of anything. So in 1998 the Justice Department accused bin Laden of collaborating with Iraq. McCarthy doesn't say how the Justice Department came by its suspicions (possibly some of the same bad intelligence that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction or was purchasing yellowcake uranium in Africa?), nor does he say that bin Laden was convicted of this.  

McCarthy goes on and on in the same illogical vein, sputtering and dragging the same old, same old, tired complaints that have been debunked so many times before. He even drags up the Mohammed Atta in Prague scenario again, even though that dead horse has been way beaten to a pulp already. The 9/11 panel debunked (once again) the Atta in Prague story in statement 16, but McCarthy will have none of it. Why, the Czech Republic saw Atta in Prague (although they changed their minds in 2002; McCarthy must've not gotten the memo). The FBI has considerable proof that Atta was in Florida when this meeting took place, but McCarthy brushes that off as so much hearsay.

McCarthy has too much invested in the Atta in Prague story to let go of it. A little matter like "overwhelming evidence to the contrary" is not going to pry it loose. Unfortunately, most of the Right Blogosphere is picking up McCarthy's arguments and repeating them in spite of the fact they make no sense.

But let's go back to statement #15. The next paragraph looks at allegations that Osama bin Laden was behind the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, another pillar of wingnut faith, and says there's no conclusive evidence. No wonder the neocons are unhappy.

I found no more mention of Iraq in statement #15. I'll go on to statement #16 tomorrow. But you can read it yourself, of course.

Related link: Bush Team Tries to Brazen It Out.

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MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) -- Russian intelligence services warned Washington several times that Saddam Hussein's regime planned terrorist attacks against the United States, President Vladimir Putin has said.

The warnings were provided after September 11, 2001 and before the start of the Iraqi war, Putin said Friday, according to the Interfax news agency.

The planned attacks were targeted both inside and outside the United States, said Putin, who made the remarks during a visit to Kazakhstan.

However, Putin said there was no evidence that Saddam's regime was involved in any terrorist attacks.

So are we making sense yet? Russia warned the U.S. that Saddam Hussein's regime planned terrorist attacks on America, but there was/is no evidence of it?

Russia opposed the war in Iraq from the beginning, but Putin said the issue of going to war was separate from a potential Iraqi threat. He said there were international norms that weren't observed in carrying out the war.

Uh huh. What he said in March 2003 was "This military action is unjustified." That doesn't sound like a quibble about "international norms."

The United States never mentioned the Russian intelligence in its arguments for going to war.

Uh huh.

After September 11, 2001, and before the start of the military operation in Iraq, the Russian special services ... received information that officials from Saddam's regime were preparing terrorist attacks in the United States and outside it against the U.S. military and other interests," Interfax quoted Putin as saying.

Despite that information about terrorist attacks being prepared by Saddam's regime, Russia's position on Iraq remains unchanged," Putin said.

Of course, Putin doesn't have to make sense to the Russian people. As dictator president of Russia, he has closed down the independent press, rigged elections, and waged an inhumane war in Chechnya. In other words, he and Shrubbie are peas in a pod, except that Putin can walk and chew gum at the same time.

If this were an X-Files episode, Mulder and Scully would be investigating corroboration between Russia and the U.S. to cover up the conspiracy about oil aliens and killer bees in cornfields and alien abductions.

Instead, we've got Putin inexplicably making up a story to cover Bush's butt. One wonders what quid pro quo was agreed to.  We may have a hint in today's Washington Post. In "Veering from Reagan," a fellow at the Hoover Institution writes,

Bush praises Putin as an ally in the fight against terrorism and a man with a vision for Russia "in which democracy and freedom and the rule of law thrive." Rather than speak the truth about Russia's autocratic drift, Bush seems content to maintain his personal relationship with Putin, even if it comes at the expense of his principles -- not exactly Reagan's approach to foreign policy.

We don't know if today's fib was just Putin returning a favor or if more substantial exchanges were made behind closed doors. But this stinks, people. It stinks out loud.

Now let's count how many nanoseconds pass before the right-wing "pundits" crush former Communist apparatchik Putin to their bosoms and thank him for being a defender of their faith.

Update: we caught one. Glennie took the bait. 

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Throughout the nation the possibility was woven into demography and politics. Here again the corrupting hand of slavery was ever present. In border states in particular but also throughout the North, who was loyal to the Union? People had migrated from slave states to free and vice-versa, leaving family and friends behind. They shared attitudes about and experiences with slavery, held them deeply, though living in different parts of the country. Would anything counter-balance them? Political loyalty linked Democrats North and South through racism, antipower rhetoric, and memories of anti-Republican struggles. Which Democrats would take that linkage to extremes? In the midst of a civil war, government needed to act when such questions threatened. [Paludan, The Presidency of Abraham Lincoln (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1994), p. 72]

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So the 9/11 Commission has found no link between Iraq and al Qaeda on attacking on the September 11th attack. So what? Do they expect us to apologize to Saddam now or something? He had what was coming, and everyone should be happy.

So why are we wasting money on a commission like this?

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Pentagon officials tell NBC News that late last year, at the same time U.S. military police were allegedly abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld ordered that one Iraqi prisoner be held “off the books” — hidden entirely from the International Red Cross and anyone else — in possible violation of international law.

It’s the first direct link between Rumsfeld and questionable though not violent treatment of prisoners in Iraq. [emphasis added]

In fact, once the prisoner was returned to Iraq, the interrogations ceased because the prisoner was entirely lost in the system. ... Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch said, “If they thought he was such a threat that he could not get Red Cross visits, then how come such a threatening prisoner got lost in the system?”

And if he's lost in the system, how do we know he is still being held in Iraq? And how do we know he's really "lost"? Forget Law and Order; X-Files reruns make more sense than this. And here's a real knee-slapper: 

Pentagon officials still insist Rumsfeld acted legally, but admit it all depends on how you interpret the law.

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The commission found that throughout the decade prior to the September 11 attacks, bin Laden’s organization forged alliances with officials in a number of foreign governments, including Iran, Sudan and Pakistan.
   
Indeed, the commission said there are “strong indications” that “elements of both the Pakistani and Iranian governments frequently turned a blind eye” to a flow of recruiters, travel facilitators, and document forgers who flew in and out of bin Laden’s training camps in Afghanistan throughout the late 1990s.
  
By contrast, the commission found little evidence of any collaborative relationship with Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq—which the Bush administration chose to invade last year at least in part because of claimed links to Al Qaeda. [Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball, Newsweek, June 16, 2004]

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It was only 10 minutes into what was billed as a relaxed “conversation” about prescription drugs. But after leafing through his talking points, perched on a small black box in front of his chair, the president was clearly struggling. “I’m just about running out of air,” he joked, before handing things over to the other four people on stage. “Want me to keep talking?” In less than 40 minutes, the conversation was over. That was about the same time as George W. Bush spent in his motorcade from Kansas City airport to his chit-chat in Liberty, Mo.

Speaking of next year’s Medicare benefits for preventative medicine, Bush seemed far less interested in the health of seniors than the financial health of the tax base. “For the first time in Medicare's history, we're now going to diagnose problems before they become acute,” he said. “That seems to make sense, particularly if you're worried about taxpayers' money. In other words, if you act early to prevent problems from happening in the first place, it's good for the taxpayers.” ...

 

More tellingly, he couldn’t confine himself to just Medicare. Speaking for only half the 39-minute event, Bush couldn’t resist veering into the war on terror and other assorted parts of his re-election strategy. After a peculiar reference to voluntary work in the community, Bush riffed on the importance of a strong military. “It’s incumbent upon America to lead and work with other nations to spread freedom,” he said in front of a giant sign emblazoned with the acronym "Rx."