Actually, it is. You see, some witnesses are better than others. If Czech intelligence is telling me about something they observed in Prague (which is a city in the Czech Republic), and then after the fact some FBI PR hacks who live in Baltimore and work in DC chime in with their opinion that it "didn't happen", I tend to place more weight on the former evidence (lacking any factual counter-evidence, of course). Call me crazy.
Why aren't you asking the Washington Times where their evidence that it didn't happen is?
Interesting story:
U.S. intelligence officials say they have not seen evidence from the Czech government to confirm reports accepted by the State Department [....] The senior U.S. intelligence official said analysts have not dismissed the meeting completely. The lack of evidence does not mean it didn't take place. "We're kind of agnostic on it," the senior official said.
Not even a denial of it happening in the first place, the way I read it.
Our intelligence people apparently don't think the evidence is enough to link al-Quada to Hussein, but you've decided to accept the reports at face value and draw your own conclusions.
Actually, I'm not sure whether I think the Prague story is 100% true myself, or whether Saddam is "linked" to The Foundation (oh sorry, "Al Qaeda"). For one thing, it doesn't affect my opinion of a war with Iraq (which is not based on whether Saddam is "linked" to 9/11 per se). What I do think is true is that the Czech government thinks it's true, and I was just responding to people who argue with this reality based on mental considerations such as "why would they have?"
But until our people publicly confirm it, it's just conjecture.
No, not "conjecture"; until our people publicly confirm it, it's a statement by the Czech intelligence which our State Department flunkies aren't willing to stand behind, for whatever reason. I don't see where you get the idea that all statements made by foreigners can be characterized as "conjecture". It's perfectly fair that you don't trust this statement as much as you would if our government confirmed it, of course; but in any case, whether the Czechs are right or wrong about this meeting, I don't really think they're guessing. (That's what "conjecture" means, you see.)
Look, you believe what you want to believe and I'll do the same.
Heh, you said a mouthful. I don't believe "what I want to believe" in the first place. Perhaps you do, but I believe facts and reality.
But don't go shoving this in my face like I'm an idiot, when it's still unsubstantiated.
I agree that it's still unsubstantiated. I didn't mean to "shove in your face" the notion that the meeting definitely, positively took place. What I was "shoving in your face", so to speak, was the fact that we have witness accounts before us saying that there is a meeting, and you chose to doubt/deny them - not based on actual evidence or reasons to doubt the witness, mind you - but because you couldn't think of a good reason, yourself, for that meeting to have taken place. It really bothers me, this "Why would they have?" reasoning, you see.
Why would Atta have met with Iraqi intelligence, why would he ask for money from Saddam? I don't know, but WE HAVE SOME INDICATION THAT HE DID. So, to ask "why would he have?" is just silly. One may as well ask, "Why would Jeffrey Dahmer have killed all those people?" After all, that was pretty irrational and non-understandable too! But, WE HAVE SOME INDICATION THAT HE DID. So it would just be silly to say "I don't believe Jeffrey Dahmer really killed all those people - why would he have?" And so your statements bother me for the exact same reason. You are implicitly saying that reality is constrained and guided by what you can understand and imagine, rather than vice versa.
Just because you can't think of a comprehensible reason for this meeting doesn't mean it didn't take place. The world doesn't, and people don't, conform to your imaginings and ruminations about peoples' actions and motives. People do lots of things for which you won't be able to think of reasons, and if you deny the existence of those actions based solely on your inability to think of reasons, you are denying reality.