It appears as though there is at least one paper willing to uphold basic standards of journalistic integrity as The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette admits they "bungled" coverage of the September 11 Commission’s conclusions on an Iraq/al-Qaeda link. (Hat tip to Captain Ed for the link.)
On Thursday, the lead headline in the Post-Gazette was "Saddam, al-Qaida Not Linked. Sept. 11 Panel’s Conclusion at Odds with Administration." In the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that day, the banner headline read: "9/11 Panel Debunks Saddam Link. Report: No Evidence of al-Qaida Ties."
This was false, as the chair and vice chair of the 9/11 commission hastened to make clear…
The Post-Gazette and Tribune-Review were by no means alone in getting the story wrong. The erroneous PG story Thursday was from The Washington Post. The story we ran Friday, headlined "Bush, Cheney Defend Linking Iraq, al-Qaida" — which avoided mentioning that both the chairman and co-chairman of the 9/11 commission agreed with Bush —was from The New York Times.
If you want to know why I don’t trust the conventional media, and why there is a liberal bias in media, look no further. The "newspapers of record" said that the September 11 Commission said there were no ties between Iraq and al-Qaeda — which is an outright lie. Then, in a follow-up piece the New York Times continued to neglect to mention the connections which were found by the Commission as well as the fact that Commission members had argued that there were links between the two.
It’s another reason why the media simply can’t be trusted to tell the story straight.
Your very sensitive way of joggling with words is funny. The real story is: “they have met to decide whether they should collaborate; the answer was no!”. If meeting someone is enough to be charged with complicity, all politicians in the world should be in jail for talking to Nixon!
You can call it a link, a connection, or whatever you’d like, but here is the straight fact you’re trying to hide: Saddam was secular; Bin Laden is a fundamentalist; they couldn’t agree on any common action: Irak has nothing to do with 9/11. Full point.
=>Bush,inc are just a band of liars. They created or imaginated the evidence they needed.
Now, you’re gonna argue that plenty of terrorist used to live in Irak. And so what? Plenty of terrorists live in Germany, France, Spain, Belgium…it’s everywhere!! Believe me, France is not subsidising terrorism.
Final remark: I will stop saying that bush&co lied when someone will try to find out who said (for example) that Irak was trying to get uranium from Niger. Bush used this information to justify his actions at UN security council, even though it has already been verified and proven wrong. After Irak was invaded, some officials conceded that the information was incorrect, and this is the end of the story. If they were honnest, and really trying to do the right thing, Bush and friends should make everything possible to know who lied to them…but they don’t. Are they affraid to find out (reveal) that they created this information?
Real final remark: if I remember well, the UN resolution the US have used (1441) was only on WMDS…none have been found, and when bush claimed some had been found, David Kay resigned…how telling is that? You’re trying to avoid difficulties by creating a new cloud of motivation…
1-no WMDs
2-no link to Al-Qaeda
3-if only you could find no petroleum, you’d see how fast the US army would come back. (you know, it’s all about OIIIIL!)
Which is of course ironic as we know they’re working together now. Plus, as bin Laden himself said: “The prophet said, those who fight to uphold the word of God, it is for the sake of God. It doesn’t hurt, under these conditions, that the interests of Muslims contradict the interest of the socialists in the fight against the crusaders.” In other words, bin Laden himself says that even though he doesn’t like Saddam Hussein, he would be willing to work with the Ba’athists to defeat the West – which proves that the argument that the two would never work together is itself an utter lie.
No one has said that it does, and Bush himself has said as much several times. That still doesn’t mean that an Iraq/al-Qaeda connection is not a threat.
For instance, Germany didn’t plan, aid, or even know about Pearl Harbor, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t have a relationship with the Japanese. The Nazis considered the Japanese to be a “mongrel race” but that doesn’t mean they weren’t willing to work together with them to defeat the US. The same is true between Iraq and al-Qaeda.
Who said that the Iraqis were looking to buy uranium from Africa?
Well, the French did for one, evidence also confirmed by MI6 in the UK. (And not evidence related to the forged documents making the same allegation.) In fact, uranium sales from Africa have been tracked by French intelligence for some time.
In fact, even Ambassador Wilson himself admitted the Iraqis had met with the government of Niger. In fact, Iraqi agents were arrested in November 2001 while trying to barter such a deal.
So, we’ve:
1:) Found at least one WMD capable of killing thousands of people.
2:) Found significant links between Iraq and al-Qaeda, including the connections in the Sudan and Ahmed Hikmat Shakir being both an al-Qaeda operative and a member of the Saddam Fedayeen, plus other subsequent meetings.
3:) Given control of Iraqi oil back to the Iraqi people
Now there’s something I can find complete agreement with…
you should listen to your war leader, your spiritual guide with much more scrutiny. what he says or does change with the weather according to you.
Don’t worry, the base line will remain in History: pre-emptive war for fake reason is one very new understanding of the concept of “self-defense”!
Maybe you don’t like Europe, but let me tell you that all americans I know here in Brussels are very sarcastic about Bush, and all europeans I know are now refusing to travel to the US due to the new data gathering of US agencies that reminds us way too much of Big Brother, or KGB work (and now in the US your neighbours HAVE to denounce you if they know something!!!). Little by little, you live in a dictatorship, but you don’t even realise this since you’re on the winner side of this ideology. You’re no better than a german aryen in 1933: “everything looks fine to me with these nazi guys”