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Saturday, September 09, 2006

I guess it depends on what the definition of the word "relation" is

Jim Abrams in the WAPO

Released Friday, the report discloses for the first time an October 2005 CIA assessment that prior to the war Saddam's government "did not have a relationship, harbor or turn a blind eye toward" al-Qaida operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi or his associates.

As recently as an Aug. 21 news conference, Bush said people should "imagine a world in which you had Saddam Hussein" with the capacity to make weapons of mass destruction and "who had relations with Zarqawi."




Also noted with appreciation

said Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., a member of the committee. "... to make a giant leap in logic to claim that the Bush administration intentionally misled the nation ...is simply not warranted."


Well I guess you can have "relations" without having a "relationship" (musta been a quickie). Seriously, no one is suggesting that Zarqawi and Saddam engaged in oral sex or anything but still Bush's blatant lie does share a word with the much more important lie, no sorry autoparsing, of Bill Clinton.

Also, to be fair, Bond decided to discuss what could be concluded based on the Senate Intelligence Committee's 2004 report (does he know about the two recent reports ?). They decided not to consider whether the Bush administration mislead the nation. Bond seems to think that they have the authority to ban others from addressing the question using the massive available evidence, such as the new smoking gun, 100% solid proof of deceit presented by Abrams.

update: The article above is an AP article. The Washington Post now has an article up by Jonathan Weisman. It seems honest and hard hitting to me. I wonder if Brad Delong is satisfied.

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