Being that we have 100K pairs of combat boots in Iraq, the country has a hard choice to make about keeping the public supportive of the war versus keeping OPSEC,etc...
...but this takes it too far IMHO.
If the "American People" have the right to know about Bill Clinton's sex life, then we also have the right to know about evidence that would convince the unwilling part of the electorate and the international community that what we are doing is right....
Suddenly you've taken that "hard choice" and made it seem like a slam-dunk in favor of Laying All Our Cards On The Table (vis-a-vis Iraq/Qaeda connections). How did that happen?
xzins has given you a list of understandable reasons for Bush not to blab "Iraq-Qaeda" on TV. After (somehow) dismissing all but one, you still acknowledged that there's a hard choice involved, but then in the end still come out with an absolutist "we have a right to know". I guess I don't get it.
The fact is that you seriously overestimate the up-side of the tradeoff involved. How much is worth getting the "unwilling part of the electorate" on board? Not very much. Bush already got his War Powers resolution (which was all he needed for the war), he got the 87 billion (to continue the policy); people like you act as if he should be desperately trying to win over the hearts of the marginal unconvinced but that's just not true. I'm sure all other things being equal he would like to get back to 80% poll numbers etc. but all things considered, winning over the "unconvinced" just isn't as important as a lot of people seem to think it is. (His re-election is, undoubtedly, important to him, and it's clear that he will place high value on such efforts if he feels his re-election would depend on it, but there's no indication yet that this is the case.)
And as for the "international community", that's even less important. (The "international community" gets no votes in our Presidential or Congressional races.) France/Germany for example are never going to Approve of our war, so the costs of getting their Approval are near-infinite. It's not worth losing sleep over their Disapproval, therefore.
For my part I think there are many conceivable reasons (the ones xzins cited, and more) for why Bush hasn't been willing to publicy get behind an Iraq/Al Qaeda connection. (If there is one.) People who don't, seem to have no imagination, or to reduce executive leadership to some kind of caricature that takes places entirely on CNN.
First of all let's keep in mind that these links are evidence not proof. I am certainly not saying they are proof. (On the other hand, they are *disproof* against people who say "no evidence of a connection has been found", get it?) The point is, were Bush to get on TV and list these things, a public debate would ensue, which most of the public would perceive as a sequence of snappy back-and-forth soundbites between the President's spokesman and Ted Kennedy. This would not necessarily give the public any more of an accurate picture of Iraq/Qaeda connections than they already have. :)
In particular, his critics would nit-pick away at all of the items. Some, undoubtedly, would prove on shaky ground, perhaps false. Just think of the "flap" over the completely-true statement in Bush's State of the Union address about Africa (not "Niger") and multiply it by 50. If you're Bush, is it worth it to invite that controversy, if you don't need to? (If you think Bush "needs to", please explain why. Remember, he *got* the War Powers vote last fall, which was *all* he needed for the war. He *got* the 87 billion, which signals continued support from Congress. Again, it would be *nice* to have overwhelming majority support of all these things - instead of shaky support with a vocal, whining opposition - but it still seems to me that the marginal costs of going for that 70% instead of 55% support - or whatever - makes it not worth it. What's the point?)
And some costs of trumpeting these things have already been listed by xzins. In particular, generally speaking, I'd like to ask: It's late 2002/early 2003, and we know about Connections. Now then: if we know, why should we let Saddam *know* we know? What would have been his likely response in the dangerous stand-off we had with him? It's interesting to think about.
Finally, another unexamined - but very important - factor in all this is anthrax. Remember the anthrax? Most people seem to have forgotten. But think back to late 2001, we'd been attacked, and someone was demonstrating that they had weaponized anthrax and were willing to use it: how do you respond if you're Bush? Much depends on where that anthrax came from. This is something that, frankly, none of us know, and I'm not sure it would even be correct to say we have a "right to know". But unless we know where that anthrax came from, we have no hope of evaluating accurately the strategic choices faced by the Bush admin. after 9/11. Was the anthrax really some "lone scientist"? Or was there (as, it seems, the admin. may believe) a state sponsor behind it, demonstrating his ability/willingness to use WMD as a deterrent? And then at the UN, it's rather hard to believe that the whole situation really boiled down to us and Saddam fighting over the affections of Jacques Chirac; what kind of standoff really took place between the US and Saddam?
We just don't know.
But until/unless we know such things, and more, it's ridiculous to sit here and state matter-of-factly that "if Bush had such info about Iraq/Qaeda connections, it would behoove him to get publicly behind that info". I really don't think anyone here is in a position to make that statement.
* my 2 cents *