When NO means YES

[underpants]

So I spend a rainy Sunday with our local retired but still spewing rightwing nutjob's WEEKLY (her' sreitred mind you) column and see this
http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/opinion/oped.apx.-content-articles-RTD-2008-04-20-0087.html

If you believe President Bush's severest critics, he lied about his reasons for going into Iraq -- notably that Saddam Hussein had any involvement with either terrorism or al-Qaida. Now "Saddam and Terrorism," a report based on the study of 600,000 captured items from Saddam's regime, shows unequivocally that Saddam had close ties to al-Qaida and was up to his keister in promoting terror.

Huh?

Never heard of it so I googled "Saddam and Terror"


Exhaustive review finds no link between Saddam and al Qaida
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/29959.html
WASHINGTON — An exhaustive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 2003 U.S. invasion has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden's al Qaida terrorist network.

The Pentagon-sponsored study, scheduled for release later this week, did confirm that Saddam's regime provided some support to other terrorist groups, particularly in the Middle East, U.S. officials told McClatchy. However, his security services were directed primarily against Iraqi exiles, Shiite Muslims, Kurds and others he considered enemies of his regime.

The new study of the Iraqi regime's archives found no documents indicating a "direct operational link" between Hussein's Iraq and al Qaida before the invasion, according to a U.S. official familiar with the report.


You can look for yourself but the rightwing/never give it up press and bloggers read exaclty the opposite in this report. Amazing.

[sinkingfeeling]

1. All the 'news' reports I read about those documents stated there were NONE linking

Saddam and al-Qaeda. I hope you dropped the 'columnist' a line.

[underpants]

4. see post #3

:hi:

[meegbear]

2. Is that a letter to the editor I smell?

Start typing.

[underpants]

3. Already done

H.Ross Mackenzie's "On Bad Air, Bad Hair,..." was correct except for the omission of one word. Where Mr. Mackenzie stated that the “Saddam and Terrorism” report “Now "Saddam and Terrorism," a report based on the study of 600,000 captured items from Saddam's regime, shows unequivocally that Saddam had close ties to al-Qaida and was up to his keister in promoting terror.” It should have said, “had NO close ties to al-Qaida”.

The activity that he and the rest of the loony far right is grasping onto was “directed primarily against Iraqi exiles, Shiite Muslims, Kurds and others he considered enemies of his regime”. A quick google search of the report’s title confirmed both of these facts.

[Lasher]

5. Aren't these the documents that desperate congressional Republicans put up on the internet?

As I recall, they hoped their right wing pals all over the world would pore over them and find something that would justify their lies in the runup to the invasion. And didn't the jackasses have to take them off the internet because a recipe for making a nuclear weapon cropped up in them?

[underpants]

6. *snarf* wouldn't surprise me

I wish I had known that before I sent the LTTE back to our local rag of a paper

[Lasher]

8. I have to believe this article is part of the full court propaganda press going on now.

Lots of liemails are going around, trying to make night into day. I just shared a rebuttal to one here in GD. But most of them are just lame retreads, so it's pretty easy to find something in Snopes to refute them.

[underpants]

9. "History will determine....."

as soon as I heard that line I knew what was coming. They are slowly going to rewrite history.

[Lasher]

10. They've been doing that all along, it's part of the Republican genre.

Take Saint Ronnie of Reagan's legendary popularity as just one tiny example.

84% of Americans liked Ike in February 1956. In August 1964, 89% of Americans liked Johnson. Even in the summer months of Carter's final, unpopular year as president (just before his defeat by Reagan in the 1980 election), Carter scored a higher Gallup personal likeability index at 76% than Reagan's 73% during the comparable period of his Administration.

For anyone who cares to look at the actual polling data, the facts show that Reagan was definitely not the most popular post-war president, and during many comparable periods he was among the most unpopular.

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1192

Rich donors fund those right wing stink tanks with billions of dollars for a reason: to promote their version of the truth. In St. Ronnie's case, their mission has been to build him up as much as possible. After all, the wealthy elite got their tax cuts at the expense of the other 90% of the country. So they wanted to convince us it is in our interests to bring along another St. Ronnie, and stand idly by while they continue to hack away at the American dream of prosperity for all.

It worked, too. This one actually got re-elected and he's like St. Ronnie on steroids. Rich folks got even more tax cuts from Junior than St. Ronnie ever gave them. So we can be sure that the stink tanks will be working tirelessly to churn out volumes of the supply-side gospel of Junior, according to St. Kudlow and a host of others.

[sinkingfeeling]

7. If anybody wants to read the full report , it's located here.

You can access all five volumes of the study at
http://www.jfcom.mil/newslink/storyarchive/2008/pa032008.html

Supposedly, you could get the thing on a CD. I requested it and than they decided to put it online. I sent back a reply, asking for the CD anyway, but haven't gotten it in 2 weeks.

You send a message to, USJFCOM Public Feedback, to request the CD.

[PaucorumHominum]

11. Please pay attention to what you write

"Exhaustive review finds NO LINK between Saddam and al Qaida

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/29959.html
WASHINGTON — An exhaustive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 2003 U.S. invasion has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime had any OPERATIONAL LINKS with Osama bin Laden's al Qaida terrorist network."

In fact the CIA Director under Bill Clinton not only claimed that we KNEW Iraq had WMDs, as claimed by Al Gore, and Madeline Albright, and Bill Clinton, and Ted Kennedy, and John Kerry, and Egyptian president Hosni Mubarek, and German intelligence, and British intelligence, and on and on, not only did the CIA Director make that categorical declaration, but he also said that we KNOW al Qaida had met with Saddam's henchmen and cooperated with them.

When America set out to depose Saddam Hussein, even Democrats were behind our troops then.
Why the sudden u-turn? Why are Democrats now carrying water for terrorists, and stabbing our troops in the back?

[baldguy]

13. "Support the troops" does not mean "attack phantom terrorists & non-threatening countries"

Iraq did have WMDs - in 1992. In the years after the Gulf War Iraq was disarmed. Iraq released 100's of thousands of documents proving this, and in 2003 when Bush started his reign of terror in Iraq, there were inspectors on the ground searching for the weapons Bush said were there - and they didn't find anything.

In response to this definitive evidence, he didn't back down and concentrate on the REAL enemy in Afghanistan - he instead started dropping bombs on innocent people.

By doing so, Bush has given aid & comfort to the enemy and given al Qaeda the best recruiting tool they ever had.

The GOP propaganda machine was in high gear pushing the Iraq War since the stat of the Bush Regime. Still millions in this country & around the world - individuals, aid organizations & governments - knew it was nothing but bullshit.

The invasion & occupation of Iraq is a war crime. All the top officials in this regime should be arrested, tried for their crimes & punished.

You should stop listening to RW propaganda.

[baldguy]

12. One thing the Dems don't have to worry about is competing for the idiot vote.

That's solid GOP all the way.

[Igel]

14. There's a lot of that kind of nit-picking.

It happens on both sides.

The NYT said there was no AQ-Saddam operational link. The RWers didn't say there was, per se: They pointed out continuing ties between GI in the early '90s, some going later, when Zawahri was in charge of Gama'ah Islamiyyah. They point out other, much weaker connections, and some other groups that Saddam sponsored at times.

The right also cites the reports use of the 600k documents. IIRC, something like 90k had been translated or summarized; the other 500k documents had their titles translated and examined. Then there were the documents that the US government had but which were still being used by the various intelligence agencies and therefore weren't declassified and released. What kinds of documents those are is up to the individual reader to speculate about. The RWers assume that the more damning documents would still be of use to the agencies, trivial documents would never have been translated, and moderately useful documents translated and released. You could make the counter argument--that the more damning documents *would* be translated and released, documents of medium use possibly translated, and trivial documents not translated. You pick your goal, you pick your argument.

Both sides quote the same report. Both sides quote it accurately. Both sides only quote what is useful for their argument and what can be used to bash the other side.

Take the Iranian NIE. It says, "with high degree of confidence", that the Iranian military nuclear program was suspended in 2003; with rather lesser confidence, it says that it has not been started up again. This implies there was a program until 2003. The NYT times skirts the issue--"diplomacy" in 2003 is alleged to have produced this outcome, as with Libya, without discussion as to what diplomatic initiative that was--and simply says there is no program. However, the NIE also points out that Pakistan and India both worked on their civilian nuclear programs for years, as well as missiles that could transport either nuclear or non-nuclear warheads, and that it does not make any claims about the Iranian "civilian" program. When it came time to weaponize their radioactive materials, it was a short hop for the South Asians, because the hard part is enrichment technology and delivery systems.

The right cites the latter parts. The left cites the former parts. They both cite the same report, and both cite it accurately. Both sides only quote what is useful for their argument and what can be used to bash the other side.

"Accurate" doesn't mean "not misleading". Partial quotes are often misleading. Since the quotes used by each side tend to come from scattered places in each report there's no chance that a side didn't read what the other read, they just didn't notice it. Instead, Manjoo seems to be right; Kristoff cited him, so, apparently, did some LA Times writer recently.

There's a reason that, when I was interested in the US/Soviet Cold War, I read both the Baltimore Sun, Time, US News and World Report, and Izvestiya. Partisans make poor scholars.

On edit: When I say "The RWers didn't say there was" in referring to Saddam-AQ links, I don't mean pundits that make sweeping generalizations based on editorials written by people that heard their friend summarize somebody that quoted the original report, like the guy in the OP. I mean people that actually made arguments about documents based on those documents, not people assuming the argument is true and taking the conclusion to be shared background knowledge, and getting it wrong.