"But the bipartisan commission probing the Sept. 11 attacks has said there was no evidence of a "collaborative relationship" even though there were contacts between Iraqis and al Qaeda, including a Sudan meeting between bin Laden and Iraqi intelligence officers.{"
The commission said no collaborative relationship in relation to attacks on America, but reuters would never lie on purporse.
Why do they keep quoting the "bipartisan commission" when they are actually quoting a staff report? Didn't Kean say that the commission was not involved in the staff reports? Kean and Hamilton have both been quoted as saying there are links, regardless of what the staff report says.
Writing in today's Times on what he calls "The Zelikow Report," Safire takes aim at the newly issued staff report that dismissed out of hand any real connection between Iraq and al-Qaida, which led to a media broadside claiming it was a conclusion of the Commission itself, which it was not.
"'Panel Finds No Qaida-Iraq Tie' went the Times headline," Safire wrote. "'Al Qaida-Hussein Link Is Dismissed' front-paged The Washington Post. The A.P. led with the thrilling words 'Bluntly contradicting the Bush Administration, the commission. ... ' This understandably caused my editorial-page colleagues to draw the conclusion that 'there was never any evidence of a link between Iraq and al Qaida. ...'"
Thrilling but untrue, the columnist notes. It was not the judgment of the commissioners, but merely an assertion of the "runaway" staff headed by ex-N.S.C. [National Security Council] aide Philip Zelikow. "After Vice President Dick Cheney's outraged objection, the staff's sweeping conclusion was soon disavowed by both commission chairman Tom Kean and vice chairman Lee Hamilton," Safire reported.
"Yesterday, Governor Kean passed along this stunner about 'no collaborative relationship' to ABC's George Stephanopoulos: 'Members do not get involved in staff reports.'"