[John Beresford Tipton]

"I think Judge Harold Baer (who has a history of letting bad guys go despite solid evidence) concluded that there was enough evidence "albeit barely," for a reasonable jury to infer "that Iraq provided material support to Al Qaeda and that it did so with knowledge and intent to further Al Qaeda's criminal acts.""

You can't read too much into that decision because of the procedural posture in which it was rendered. It was a suit in which the defendants did not appear. The plaintiffs moved for a default judgment. In those circumstances the judge has to weigh the evidence in favor of the plaintiffs making all necessary inferences in their favor. It's sort of like a soccer game when one side gets a free kick at the goal. It does not mean that if the defendants appeared the result would have been the same; maybe yes, maybe no.

[optimistically_conservative]

I agree with, and understand that.

I'm thinking thru the "no evidence" part of Bush's statement. Obviously there was evidence, which you rightly point out, may or may have withstood refutation by the defendants and may or may not have measured the preponderance of the evidence to assign liability after the default judgement.

But, there was evidence. Not the level of evidence to show Saddam stood over a map with UBL showing Atta how to approach the WTC towers - but evidence none the less to tie Iraqi support for AQ to the 9-11 attacks.

If that is not evidence, then there is likewise no evidence that Saudi Arabia was involved in the 9/11 attack, right?