Friday, September 08, 2006

No Prewar Saddam-Al Qaeda Ties



Yes, I know that it's boring to harp on about the same piece, but even minor goddesses have obligations:

There's no evidence Saddam Hussein had ties with al-Qaida, according to a Senate report on prewar intelligence that Democrats say undercuts President Bush's justification for invading Iraq.

Bush administration officials have insisted on a link between the Iraqi regime and terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Intelligence agencies, however, concluded there was none.

Republicans countered that there was little new in the report and Democrats were trying to score election-year points with it.

The declassified document released Friday by the intelligence committee also explores the role that inaccurate information supplied by the anti-Saddam exile group the Iraqi National Congress had in the march to war.

It concludes that postwar findings do not support a 2002 intelligence community report that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program, possessed biological weapons or ever developed mobile facilities for producing biological warfare agents.

And what is this obligation I speak of? It's the obligation to inform all Americans who answered this question in a recent Zogby poll with "agree":

Do you agree or disagree that there was a connection between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 terror attacks?

Two thirds of Republican respondents to the survey did so.

So yes, it's old news. An old inaccuracy (see how polite I'm here) which sprouted, grew and now has brought a harvest. But it's also not true.