Document links Saddam, bin Laden

The Tennessean ^ | 07/11/03 | GILBERT S. MERRITT

[AHerald]

Apparently the Judge's original story was simply overlooked by the larger news organizations. After all, it's not like it was in a major newspaper.

The sudden burst of media attention by the NY Post, Boston Herald, etc. seems to have been generated by the fellow who runs Instapundit, Glenn Reynolds, after he featured a link to the original article on his web site.

[AHerald]

...what you get is a Friday push (recall the Clinton tactics) of what looks to be good news for the administrations case.

You do recall though that the "Friday push" was used by the Clintons to release stories that were harmful to them, not the other way around. When the Clintons wanted to bury bad news they released it on Fridays.

[Republican Wildcat]

Which reports?

You're kidding, right?

[Republican Wildcat]

The Clintons released BAD news on Fridays, not good news.

[JohnGalt]

I was not trying to 'kid' anyone.

Which Sunday Telegraph reports? From last week or last January. I can't assume to know what you are talking about.

The Sunday Telegraph is a Hollinger paper correct? Which famous hawk sits on the board of Hollinger?

[JohnGalt]

Actually, that was the point of my post, if this was "good news" why put it out on Friday? Nothing new was added to the story just the administrations press release.

If you look at Condi's and Rummy's preformance on Sunday, it seems that the administrations goal was to cloudy the water. The administration is only conceding that the intelligence, 'which is correct, should not have been cleared for the State of the Union address because it did not pass certain bars.' Very confusing from where I am sitting.

[JohnGalt]

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/justincol.html

Justin has some interesting links that deconstruct Judge Merrit's sudden discovery. Worth a read, if only for the great links, hold the polemics.

[VOA]

bump

[AHerald]

Justin has some interesting links that deconstruct Judge Merrit's sudden discovery. Worth a read, if only for the great links, hold the polemics.

He offers no links to anything at all that even remotely begins to credibly deconstruct the Merrit story. Along with the links to the original stories in The Tennessean and The Weekly Standard, Justin initially offers only rank speculation, opinon and his outright disbelief of the List of Honor story and the circumstances surrounding it.

Justin then proceeds to offer up two linked references to articles which he claims bolster his case against the validity of the Merritt story. One is a link to a story about a separate newspaper shutdown which lasted "for weeks" more than a year and a half earlier. (Hard to tell if Justin's arguing that this was the same shutdown or merely the genesis of Sahaf's "bad blood" with Uday.) And, incredibly, the second link actually serves more to support the Merritt story instead of debunking it. (Read the "List of Honour" paragraphs for yourself in this BBC news report about the newspaper shutdown from November 24, 2002 which Justin has linked to)

Justin is not a good writer, and so it's difficult to discern with any clarity just what his conclusion is about the List of Honor story. On one hand he argues that "The whole thing screams "phony,"" while on the other hand he links to a BBC article which actually confirms that such a list containing the damning Al-Qaeda connection was indeed published just prior to the order to suspend publication.

I frankly can't tell if Justin's claiming that there was no List of Honor published to begin with; or that the publication of the list and susequent newspaper shutdown (which he claims, without convincing substantiation, can be traced to bad blood between Sahaf and Uday)doesn't add up to evidence of anything significant in the way of an Al-Qaeda/Iraq connection. Not that it matters much, given that the references Justin cites do not support either conclusion to which he's clealry already jumped to before all the facts surrounding the Merritt story are fully known.

I don't have a complete judgement on the value of this info yet because I've not seen all the facts. However, one thing is becoming clearer: There are independent and contemporaneous news stories which report the publication of the List of Honor along with with the Al-Qaeda reference back in Novermber of 2002 in Uday's newspaper, just as Merritt has described.

[AHerald]

Nothing new was added to the story just the administrations press release.

Are you referring to the Tenent statement, because I'm unaware of any administration press release on the specific Judge Merritt issue? And are you somehow suggesting that the sudden news coverage of the heretofore unnoticed Merritt story and some administration press release are somehow related to an obfuscation effort by the administration?

Have you read the complete text of the Tenet statement? If not, you really should, because he lays out the timeline and events surrounding the Niger State of the Untion reference in detail. It's a pretty persuasive case that this is much ado about not very much.

[JohnGalt]

I think Justin did a fine a job laying out the story behind the story which no one seems interested in telling. Of course, he tells it with the end already in mine, but most of the country's tabs ran with this story with almost zero documentation to back it up.

The Merrit story was run as a pure propoganda piece. You seem less the fascinated that a two week old story was considered front fold material.

We'll keep tabs on it. If the story has no legs, I will chalk it up as bunk.

[JohnGalt]

Tenet falling on his sword-- not the Tenet piece.

I thought the two pieces in juxtaposition served the administration's case so I was unclear why they waited until Friday to release it or push the two week old Judge Merit story.

Your analysis of the statement is fine, did not read, but I was more interested in how it was reported. What was the title to the story, what were the first paragraphs. It would be naive to think that these releases from this administration on this issue is anything but calculated spin control. That is not to say they are guilty, lying, or covering up, they are just very aware of how this issue is playing in the public's mind.

[AHerald]

The Merrit story was run as a pure propoganda piece. You seem less the fascinated that a two week old story was considered front fold material.

And you seem more fascinated with the timing of the story than the content. As already described, the Merritt story broke in a small paper and was somehow ignored by the larger media until Instapundit published a link to it. This is no great mystery.

But the two week old publication date is less important than the fact that there are contemporaneous news accounts of the List of Honor story which were published last year, long before Judge Merritt or the Weekly Standard stories. These stories independently support Merritt's claim about the list's publication. That is a hard fact to ignore.

[JohnGalt]

Granted, different aspects of the story interest us both.

I have come to believe that in times of war, the first casualty is truth, thus I don't expect to ever know the 'real answer' except for maybe 15-50 years from now when FOIA folks get at the info. Thus, interpretations of 'intelligence' and 'news' is colored by the assumptions we bring to the table when interpreting current events.

You begin with the assumption that the administration is 'probably telling the truth' and timing of news releases is 'probably coincidental.' I begin with the opposite assumptions.