No Relationship

There are still PLENTY of Bush defenders who insist, as the Vice President did yesterday, that Saddam Hussein had a working relationship with Al Qaeda. That list got one smaller yesterday, as the Defense Department's report on Doug Feith's alternative intelligence shop revealed this:

...the inspector general's report, in a footnote, commented that it is "noteworthy . . . that post-war debriefs of Sadaam Hussein, [former Iraqi foreign minister] Tariq Aziz, [former Iraqi intelligence minister Mani al-Rashid] al Tikriti, and [senior al-Qaeda operative Ibn al-Shaykh] al-Libi, as well as document exploitation by [the Defense Intelligence Agency] all confirmed that the Intelligence Community was correct: Iraq and al-Qaida did not cooperate in all categories" alleged by Feith's office.

From these sources, the report added, "the terms the Intelligence Community used to describe the relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida were validated, [namely] 'no conclusive signs,' and 'direct cooperation . . . has not been established.' "

So the CIA was right all along in describing the relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda as nonexistent. In 2002 putting that question to the public would probably get 80-90% in the affirmative, because it was a central case for war. Even NOW it's a central case for staying, indirectly, as the spin goes that because of September 11, we cannot leave a safe haven for terrorists, yadda yadda yadda (Even though, of course, there are vast swaths of Waziristan which are, you know, safe havens for terrorists). The truth is that it was all wrapped up into a big lie, and a KNOWING one, as the intelligence community was well aware that there was no collaborative relationship, in addition to their doubts about WMD. This is the strongest indication yet that Doug Feith's shop was literally designed to rewrite history, to fix the intelligence around the policy. More than anything, this is why there will be no second chance on Iraq with the American public. It's because it began in bad faith, and so it will end the same way.