Misleading the public

The Guardian are reporting that "A US military study officially acknowledged for the first time yesterday that Saddam Hussein had no direct ties to al-Qaida, undercutting the Bush administration's central case for war with Iraq. The study, based on more than 600,000 documents recovered after US and UK troops toppled Saddam in 2003, concluded there was "no 'smoking gun' [direct connection] between Saddam's Iraq and al-Qaida"." This seems conclusive and is of course what the Guardian and its readers want to believe. However the facts are somewhat different... The executive summary does indeed say "his study found no ‘smoking gun’ (i.e., direct connection) between Saddam's Iraq and al Qaeda" but if you look at the actual report then you would also read that (my emphasis) "Captured documents reveal that the regime was willing to co-opt or support organizations it knew to be part of al Qaeda-as long as that organization's near-term goals supported Saddam's longterm vision…...Saddam supported groups that either associated directly with al Qaeda (such as the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, led at one time by bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri) or that generally shared al Qaeda's stated goals and objectives...Because Saddam’s security organizations and Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network operated with similar aims (at least in the short term) considerable operational overlap was inevitable when monitoring, contacting, financing, and training the regional groups involved in terrorism. This created both the appearance of and, in some ways, a ‘de facto’ link between the organizations....Iraq was a long-standing supporter of international terrorism..."

Maybe the Guardian could look at the whole document not just the Executive Summary and maybe they could report a story truthfully not as they would wish it to be.




Thanks to Melanie Phillips for the spot.