Instapundit summarizes a wealth of information in his main post and more, including an e-mail from one of the staffers, on the reports from the 9/11 commission. The staffer suggests readers refer to the documents themselves.
These documents appear to argue we did not (or at least should not have) invaded Iraq thinking Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11. I didn’t think we did, but I may have missed something. My impression was that Cheney (the most outspoken) always used words like “connection” in a broader sense, not specifically related to 9/11. People have argued he was misleading, but when they cite quotes, his words have been qualified and clear. The fact that NPR viewers believe there was no connection may be countered by Fox’s viewers belief that there was. Isn’t the question what kind of connection if we are going to assess the savy of listeners? Neither or both can be right.
(NPR has a TV channel ?)
Well, there is still the little question of how an intelligence community with a $30bn budget could not know more than France’s $300m spook agency when it came to Iraq and its arsenal. And if they could miss the USS Cole, 9/11 and be so utterly and completely wrong about Iraq’s WMDs, why should we trust claims of connections with al-Qaeda ? Or even trust claims of their absence ?
What is amazing is to watch various bits of government contradict each other for months on end in ways that should make anyone reasonable question their competence, yet both sides of the electorate seem happy to grab the pieces they need to reinforce their own existing prejudice and go on repeating the same thing, regardless of facts, evidence, or lack thereof.
But hey, this is all part of the liberal media conspiracy, right ? Anything positive is true, anything negative is “biased”.
As for contacts between Bin Laden and his organization and foreign governments, I think we’d have better luck snooping around Pakistan’s ISI.
Oh wait. They’re our friends and allies. Never mind.
Cool new feature for latest comments! Way to go Jonathan!
All credit to Martin Devon, who showed me how to do it.
Very cool. Next week: an animated lap dancer in the masthead.