There is evidence of linkage. An abundance of it.
The administration, inexplicably, downplayed the linkage. Maybe because they reached the conclusion that we'd be better received in Iraq as liberators rather than avengers, I don't know.
But the evidence is everywhere, and a good deal of it is incontrovertible. And the President has not done nearly enough to emphasize it, which in turn has enabled the left to attack this war's legitimacy with a relentless barrage of provable lies.
IMO, it has been the single greatest mistake of this war.
And the President has not done nearly enough to emphasize it, which in turn has enabled the left to attack this war's legitimacy with a relentless barrage of provable lies. There's a reason for that. To a competent intelligence analyst and intelligence agency, it's clear that there's no links of any major significance between Saddam and AQ. He's not going out on a limb claiming flimsy, circumstantial evidence that no real analyst would sign his name to.
I don't believe that the Pentagon manipulated intelligence in the way that this article is alleging. What we thought we knew about the WMDs was pretty solid. This Saddam/AQ fluff isn't. That's why the you won't see the President or anyone in the Administration try and sell it.