Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Lifting the fog

Stephen Hayes:

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...The staff statement was a model of muddle, but this much is clear: There is nothing in it that reliably or categorically "refutes" a connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda....

So was there or wasn't there a "collaborative relationship" between Iraq and Al Qaeda?

CIA Director George Tenet certainly believes so. "Credible reporting states that Al Qaeda leaders sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire WMD capabilities," he wrote to the Senate Intelligence Committee on Oct. 7, 2002. "The reporting also stated that Iraq had provided training to Al Qaeda members in the areas of poisons and gases and making conventional bombs." When Tenet testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Feb. 12, 2003, he said that although his agency could not show "command and control" between Al Qaeda and the Iraqi regime — something the Bush administration never claimed — it could demonstrate "contacts, training and safe haven."

Top Clinton administration officials also suggested a "collaborative" relationship. On Aug. 7, 1998, Al Qaeda terrorists bombed U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, killing 257 people — including 12 Americans. The Clinton administration struck back 13 days later, hitting a pharmaceutical plant, an Al Qaeda-linked facility in Sudan. On Aug. 24, 1998, a "senior intelligence official" made available by the White House told reporters that U.S. intelligence had found "strong ties between the plant and Iraq." Among that evidence: telephone intercepts between top officials at the plant and the head of Iraq's chemical weapons program. In all, six top Clinton administration officials argued that Iraq had provided the chemical weapon know-how to the plant demolished in response to the Al Qaeda attacks.

Today, top Clinton officials are still not backing down from these claims. William Cohen, former secretary of Defense, defended the strikes as recently as March 23, 2004, in testimony before the Sept. 11 commission. Cohen said an executive from the Sudanese plant had "traveled to Baghdad to meet with the father of [Iraq's] VX [nerve gas] program."

Other recent intelligence, including communications intercepts and interviews with Iraqi intelligence detainees, indicates that Iraq provided funding and weapons to Ansar al Islam, an Al Qaeda affiliate in northern Iraq.