The Neo-Con Defense of Saddam and Al Qaeda Links

The Saddam-Osama Memo, and Its Critics

el - The original tactics of the hard right and the Murdoch media empire was to ignore the DoD statement that the reports were "inaccurate," "not an analysis," and "drew no conclusion." The DoD also strongly condemned the latest example of the right leaking and publishing classified and secret documents.

This is the Weekly Standard's first response to the "inaccurate" charge. They fail to note this report is coming from the unfiltered pro-war pipeline set up to bypass the normal intelligence channels. They fail to note that the great majority of the reports are uncollaborated testimony by people with an agenda to get the U.S. to invade Iraq and instead try to force collaboration by saying there are six separate reports of meetings in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Sure, there is some level of contacts, which the neo-cons are trying to raise to the threat to the United States level. But the basic fact remains that Al Qaeda and Saddam had a hostile relationship and bin Ladin considered Saddam the leader of the main secularist regime in the Middle East that needed to be converted.

There have been a series of articles in the last several weeks, the latest neo-con media campaign, to reassociate Iraq with a terrorist threat to the U.S. The evidence is actually much less strong than before the war.

No word from the standard on the flaunting of national security laws. Of course, as the Plame Game has shown, with Ashcroft as Attorney General the right is not subject to the same laws as the rest of us.

Added - From the Center for American Progress

While the person who published the report, Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard, tried to defend himself, the Saddam-Al Qaeda myth has been debunked before. The NYT reported on 6/27/03 that, “The chairman of the monitoring group appointed by the United Nations Security Council to track Al Qaeda told reporters that his team had found no evidence linking Al Qaeda to Saddam Hussein.” The LA Times reported on 7/19/03 that the bipartisan 9/11 commission report “undercuts Bush administration claims before the war that Hussein had links to Al Qaeda.” And National Journal reported on 8/9/03 that “three former Bush Administration officials who worked on intelligence and national security issues said the prewar evidence tying Al Qaeda was tenuous, exaggerated and often at odds with the conclusions of key intelligence agencies.”