Demosophia

Is the Hayes Article on the Saddam/Al Qaeda Connection Just Spin?

[The Hayes article in question is here, if you haven't yet seen it.]
I don't think it's spin. Just the tip of the iceberg, really. Here's Josh Chafetz's interpretation of the DOD press release. He basically says that the press release is deliberately crafted so that it doesn't contradict Hayes' article. While the Feith memo does make numerous assessments about the reliability of various pieces of intelligence, it doesn't draw conclusions about the substantive issue of the links between Al Qaeda and Saddam, and Hayes doesn't say that it does. The Feith memo is an annotated list of intelligence reports concerning the link, and was cleared by the CIA and a number of other intelligence agencies, according to the DOD press release. The specific reports on the list would have been requested separately.

The press seems to be drawing the wrong conclusions from the DOD press release for the moment, because it's so poorly worded, but this IS probably a big deal. It provides references to reliable triangulated evidence that the Al Qaeda / Saddam link has existed for a long time, and that much of the evidence is far more reliable than the infamous Atta meeting with Iraqi officials in Prague, which probably did not occur (although other Atta meetings in Prague at other times probably did).

But this Feith memo, or "annex," is really just very suggestive by itself. The final smoking gun will come when the reports to which it refers come out, and when other information gleaned since the invasion of Iraq are released that either refute or verify it. (And I'm betting on the latter.) But make no mistake, the long delusion that there was no link between Saddam and Al Qaeda is almost certainly going down in flames.

Sullivan has more to say about it here and here:

Posted by Demosophist at November 17, 2003 11:39 AM | TrackBack