Yet another file for the “well no shit” folder. I didn’t really need to be told this, nor did any of you, but the Senate has officially discovered zero connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda.

“Today’s reports show that the administration’s repeated allegations of a past, present and future relationship between al Qaeda and Iraq were wrong and intended to exploit the deep sense of insecurity among Americans in the immediate aftermath of the September 11th attacks,” said Sen. John Rockefeller of West Virginia, the panel’s ranking Democrat.

Now, this is important because there is no way to “lawyer” his way out of this. While Bush has previously been able to dart around his claim that Saddam was partially at fault for 9/11 by reminding us all “hey, no one said Saddam personally directed the attacks!”, this leaves him zero wiggle room to make excuses. Consider what Bush said just a few weeks ago:

THE PRESIDENT: I square it because, imagine a world in which you had Saddam Hussein who had the capacity to make a weapon of mass destruction, who was paying suiciders to kill innocent life, who would — who had relations with Zarqawi. Imagine what the world would be like with him in power. The idea is to try to help change the Middle East.

So when Ye Old president is telling us that Saddam had relations with Zarqawi, the exact opposite is true. There is no way to get around that. Bush says Saddam was helping Zarqawi, the Senate panel finds this to be patently false.

I wonder if this can finally squash that remaining… nearly half of people who still believe Saddam was personally involved with 9/11. Bush says he never said that, but gee I wonder why anyone would think something like that.

It couldn’t have been when he said it this time, could it?

The president answered: “The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al Qaeda, because there was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda.”

Maybe this one?

“These al Qaeda affiliates, based in Baghdad, now coordinate the movement of people, money and supplies into and throughout Iraq for his network, and they’ve been operating freely in the capital for more than eight months,” said U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell in his presentation last month to the U.N. Security Council.

Oh wait, how about this?

“Zarqawi’s the best evidence of a connection to al Qaeda affiliates and al Qaeda,” Bush told reporters at the White House. “He’s the person who’s still killing.”

Even Cheney gets in on it!

Vice President Dick Cheney, in a speech Monday in Florida, raised eyebrows by reasserting claims that Saddam “had long-established ties with al Qaeda.”

Or how about this from before the war?

We know that Iraq and al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade. Some al Qaeda leaders who fled Afghanistan went to Iraq. These include one very senior al Qaeda leader who received medical treatment in Baghdad this year, and who has been associated with planning for chemical and biological attacks. We’ve learned that Iraq has trained al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases.

Man, I cannot imagine why people would think that there was a connection. Bush has clearly said there wasn’t one! It’s like people are imagining things that just aren’t there…

[tags]iraq, terrorism, bush, al qaeda, war[/tags]

Lordy. This is becoming epidemic. I understand that the 5th anniversary is coming up, but what is the value of a video showing bin Laden meeting with a suspected hijacker?

For the first time, a video has been released showing al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden meeting with suspected terrorist Ramzi Binalshibh, purportedly as they prepare for the September 11, 2001 attacks, according to Al-Jazeera, which aired the tape Thursday.

Binalshibh is a Yemeni who allegedly admitted a role in planning the attacks. He was among 14 al Qaeda operatives that President Bush on Wednesday said had been transferred to the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

I have to ask: so what? So the hell what? What does this matter? It’s a video from five years ago and it has no real value. It’s just a random “LOOK! TERRORISTS!” video. Why wait until now to release it? Are we to believe that Al Qaeda has been sitting around going “okay, we have a tape of us talking, but we need a better anniversary to show it”? Bullshit manipulation.

[tags]terrorism, al qaeda, 9/11, bin laden[/tags]