After the commission staff released its findings Wednesday that there was no "collaborative relationship" between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda -- challenging an assertion Bush and Vice President Cheney have made for the past two years -- Bush declared again that there was, in fact, a relationship.
Dana Milbank in today's WaPo.
Look, you don't have to be a charter member of the Laurie Mylroie crowd, spouting off about Prague intrigues, to accept that Bush/Cheney aren't lying on this issue.
Here's 9/11 Commission vice-chair Democrat Lee 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.
Again, why is this so hard?
Do I think Cheney should cool it a bit on Prague/Atta?
Yeah, probably.
But do I think he was right to lambast the NYT's earlier handling of this story?
Yeah, I do.
Their treatment of the story was constitutive of hyperbolic media bias--pure and simple.
By the way, back over at the WaPo, Milbank goes on to suggest that Kerry might use some of the 9/11 Commission findings to wound Bush politically.
I'm not so sure.
9/11 was the biggest tragedy to hit the continental United States since the Civil War.
It's not a political football--particularly as the attack was being planned during Clinton's time in office.
Kerry should tread very carefully on this issue, in my humble opinion.
UPDATE: A NYT retraction, of sorts!
Posted by Gregory Djerejian at June 20, 2004 02:00 PM