Iraq and 9/11

I realize that I have been letting this blog go off-subject of late, but I can’t resist digging into The Big Headline from the 9/11 Commission–there is no link between Saddam and 9/11. The smarmily worded first paragraph of the NYT story begins, “Bluntly contradicting the Bush administration, the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks reported Wednesday there was ‘no credible evidence’ that Saddam Hussein helped al-Qaida target the United States.” All of this raises more questions than it answers in my mind, and the NYT isn’t looking into those:

1. The headline reads, “Sept. 11 Commission Report Says Iraq Rebuffed Al Qaeda.” That whirling sensation you’re feeling isn’t the coriolis effect. The fact behind this breathtaking spin is that senior Iraqi intel officers did meet with al-Qaeda leaders after all, something war opponents have done their best to deny (remember the still-raging kerfuffle over Mohammad Atta’s alleged pre-9/11 meeting with an Iraqi diplomat in Prague?). Switch “Taliban” for “Iraqi,” and then say it happened in, oh, February 2001. Now just image the headline: “Bush Warned As 9/11 Plot Hatched.”

2. Is the conclusion (a) no Iraqi connection to al-Qaeda at all, (b) no direct connection to 9/11, or (c) no connection to terrorism against the United States? Do they mean to suggest that (b) is a causus belli, but that (a) and (c) aren’t? When did ever Bush assert an Iraqi connection to 9/11 to justify the war in Iraq?

3. What do they make of the fact that Saddam sheltered one of the 93 WTC bombing planners (a suspected Iraqi intel agent) in Baghdad and refused our request to extradite him? What of the attempt to kill Bush 41, or the exposed plot to blow up Radio Free Europe? How do those essentially uncontroverted facts fail to place the al-Qaeda meeting–now apparently confirmed–in context?

4. I don’t mean to keep whacking at sacred idols, but what evidence really disproves the 9/11 connection? And was that evidence available before we invaded Iraq, or was President Bush just giving our safety the benefit of the doubt? Isn’t the real truth that we are learning more all the time, but there’s still no conclusive evidence of a Saddam-9/11 connection?

5. More specifically, the report sources senior al-Qaptives. What leads us to place such faith in their credibility?

How wonderful it would be if one could get searching and unbiased analysis in an election year.