Dick Cheney just isn't buying the 9/11 Commission report which told us... well, what did it tell us? The NY Times headline was that "Panel Finds No Qaeda-Iraq Tie". However, within the story we learn that, according to the Commission, "there did not appear to have been a "collaborative relationship" between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein". We are further informed that "We have no credible evidence that Iraq and Al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States." No ties, no collaborative relationship, no joint attacks against the US - those are three different things, and the one-size fits all headline doesn't work. For example, the report states (p. 3 of .pdf file) that "Bin Ladin sought to build a broader Islamic army that also included terrorist groups from... Iraq. Not all groups from all countries joined, but at least one from each did."
The group from Iraq may well be Ansar Al Islam, which may or may not have had ties to Saddam's government on an "enemy of my enemy is my friend" basis.
Andrew McCarthy has a long rebuttal to the Commission effort. And Andrew Sullivan finds the "No Sale" sign hung around Commission members Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton. A quick excerpt from Mr. Hamilton:
"I must say I have trouble understanding the flack over this. 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. What we have said is what the governor just said, we don't have any evidence of a cooperative, or a corroborative relationship between Saddam Hussein's government and these al Qaeda operatives with regard to the attacks on the United States. So it seems to me the sharp differences that the press has drawn, the media has drawn, are not that apparent to me."
For heaven's sake.
I will just pick up a couple of points on the Prague Meeting, and the Iraqi Rapper Shakir:
The Prague Meeting: the NY Times is satisfied that it didn't happen:
No Evidence of Meeting With Iraqi
WASHINGTON, June 16 - A report of a clandestine meeting in Prague between Mohammed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence officer first surfaced shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks. And even though serious doubt was cast on the report, it was repeatedly cited by some Bush administration officials and others as evidence of a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq.
But on Wednesday, the Sept. 11 commission said its investigation had found that the meeting never took place.
In its report on the Sept. 11 plot, the commission staff disclosed for the first time F.B.I. evidence that strongly suggested that Mr. Atta was in the United States at the time of the supposed Prague meeting.
The report cited a photograph taken by a bank surveillance camera in Virginia showing Mr. Atta withdrawing money on April 4, 2001, a few days before the supposed Prague meeting on April 9, and records showing his cellphone was used on April 6, 9, 10 and 11 in Florida.
This evidence was disclosed for the first time? Edward Jay Epstein had all this a while ago. Here is an extensive background piece from Slate, and some follow up on his website [Note to Mr. Epstein -a few timestamps might be helpful.]. Here is his comment on the cell phone records:
The FBI also could not account for why he withdrew the money. The FBI found records indicating that a cell phone Atta used had been in Florida during the period he was missing, but those records only pinned down the whereabouts of Atta's cell phone. Atta could have left behind a cell phone which did not function in Europe.
Apparently, as of February this case was unresolved:
CIA director Tenet summed up the true status of the case in his Senate testimony on Feb 24, 2004:
SENATOR LEVIN: What is the Intelligence Committee's assessment of whether or not 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta met with Ahmed al-Ani, an alleged Iraq intelligence officer in Iraq in April of 2001. What is your assessment?
MR. TENET: Sir, I know you have a paper up here that outlines all that for you. It's a classified paper. My recollection is we can't prove that one way or another.
Andrew McCarthy also mentions Shakir, who met some 9/11 conspirators in Malaysia and seems to have been in the Iraqi military. More from the WSJ on that.
Finally, here is Tenet's letter to Congress released just before the Congressional vote on the war resolution, and a bonus WaPo story.
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