Can we set the record straight on Iraq and Al Qaeda?

by Evie Jul 24, 2004 10:50PM PDT

Boogie to Baghdad
What the 9/11 Commission says about Iraq and al Qaeda.

The publication of the September 11 Commission report may force a reassessment of the now-conventional wisdom about the links ? or, as critics of the Bush administration contend, the absence of links ? between Iraq and al Qaeda.

After the commission's last hearing, in mid-June, the Washington Post published a front-page story headlined "Al Qaeda-Hussein Link is Dismissed." The New York Times ran a page-one story ? topped by a four-column headline ? called "Panel Finds No Qaeda-Iraq Tie." Both reports strongly suggested that Vice President **** Cheney had been wrong when he said on many occasions that there were extensive links between Iraq and al Qaeda.

The reporting, and the commentary that followed, so angered Cheney that he said, on June 18, "What the New York Times did today was outrageous. The fact of the matter is, the evidence [of an Iraq-al Qaeda link] is overwhelming." Further coverage and commentary criticized Cheney for stubbornly sticking to his position.

Both the Times and the Post based their reporting on a single paragraph, written by the staff of the September 11 Commission, which conceded a few ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda but said there was no "collaborative relationship" between the two. The findings, revealed in the commission's last hearing on June 17, were preliminary, and the apparent rush by some in the press to deny any Iraq-al Qaeda relationship left commission vice-chairman Lee Hamilton baffled. "I must say I have trouble understanding the flack over this," Hamilton told reporters. "The Vice President is saying, I think, that there were connections between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's government. We don't disagree with that. So it seems to me the sharp differences that the press has drawn, the media has drawn, are not that apparent to me."

Now, with the release of the commission's final report, it is clear what Hamilton and Cheney were talking about. The final report details a much more extensive set of contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda than the earlier staff statement. It also modifies the original "no collaborative relationship" description, now saying there was "no collaborative operational relationship" (emphasis added) between Iraq and Al Qaeda. And it suggests a significant amount of contact and communication between the regime of Saddam Hussein and the terrorist organization headed by Osama bin Laden.

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -

Unfortunately the strength of the links ,like beauty,are

by gearup Jul 25, 2004 1:30AM PDT

in the eye of the beholder. It will be 50 years before we get data stripped of opinion..if then!

- Collapse -

The facts are there ...

by Evie Jul 25, 2004 8:17AM PDT

... of course opinion will spin them to one's benefit. The point of the article is that the liberal press spun the anti-Bush angle pretty strongly. Would be nice if they were as diligent in setting the record straight.

- Collapse -

Put Saddam Hussein on a lie detector and

by SteveGargini Jul 25, 2004 4:52AM PDT

and ask him straight out what his relationship was with Al Qaeda, nothing, something or a lot.

Can we set the record straight on Iraq and Al Qaeda?

CNET Forums

Other Forums

Forum Info