The story linked above is an important follow-up on THIS disussion that appeared in Maine Owl in February. At that time, I was interested in the infamous 2002 "Dodgy Dossier" that was the basis of many inflammatory pre-Iraq-war statements from a variety of officials, including President Bush, who in September 2002 said, "The regime has long-standing and continuing ties to terrorist groups, and there are al Qaeda terrorists inside Iraq."
A World of Fantasy and Half-Truths: Spinning Saddam
After prolonged bureaucratic labor the latest report of the Iraqi Perspectives Project (IPP) finally made it out to the larger world. Its primary conclusion, which has been making headlines since news of it was first reported March 10 by Warren Strobel of McClatchey Newspapers, is that an exhaustive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents and several thousand hours of audio and video footage, archived in a U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) database called Harmony, that were captured after the 2003 U.S. invasion, has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist network.That's the word from the Pentagon itself. Isenberg does the important work of explaining why 180-degree spinning within the halls of wingnuttia currently going on about this report is dead wrong.
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