Declassified Intelligence Report: Iraq Had No Pre-War Ties to Al-Qaeda

The Washington Post is running a story on a declassified US Defense Department report released yesterday, that discounts any pre-war ties between Iraq and al-Qaeda. Before the war, the US intelligence community was pretty much aligned in their consensus that there was only limited contacts between al-Qaeda and Iraqi government officials -- and that any links between the two was based on suspect information. The Undersecretary of Defense, Douglas J. Feith, however, had taken such reports from the CIA and DIA, and spun a tale of lies to feed to Cheney and Bush, which concluded that there was indeed an established relationship between al-Qaeda and Iraq -- and that Iraq may even have had a hand in the 9/11 attacks on the US. The CIA had disagreed with the information Feith was feeding Cheney and Bush via briefings -- and expressed their disagreement -- however, Feith concluded that the CIA could be ignored.

Subsequent to the US invasion of Iraq and the toppling of Sadaam Hussein, Iraq's former foreign minister, Tariq Aziz; former intelligence minister, Mani al-Rashid al Tikriti; and senior al-Qaeda operative, Ibn al-Shaykh, were all interrogated, and evidence they provided also supports the CIA and DIA's pre-war conclusions.

So, where does this leave the Bush Administration? Totally exposed you would think. If you were completely sane, that's exactly where your conclusions would be drawn. If you were completely nuts however, you would be the vice-president of the United States, and on the same day the report was being publicly released, you'd be on the radio, reconfirming the spin, that really, "they [al-Qaeda] were present [in Iraq] before we invaded."

Updated:

Scott Adams has a short post on his site, titled: I Wish I Had a Government. Adams is upset. Upset at the current government and the alternative. Adams is looking for his tax dollars at work, and suggests that he would be happy if "Congressmen and Congresswomen run across a field of rakes every morning to get to work. ... it would only take a few rakes in the face per day to make me feel as if my tax dollars weren't a complete waste."