MEETING A STANDARD

The hints at a connection between Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and Al Qaeda go on, but I continue to have the same problems with the hints: The language used in almost all these leaks and intelligence assessments never really says anything.

I don’t think the Central Intelligence Agency purposefully skews much intelligence at the request of the executive branch, but I do think it has been forced to walk a fine line between providing what it knows the White House wants -- a rationale for war and related activities -- and what it knows to be true. This results in the language-that-says-nothing of that Oct. 7, 2002, letter from CIA director George Tenet to the Senate intelligence committee (“Iraq and al-Qa’ida have discussed safe haven and reciprocal non-aggression ... we have solid evidence of the presence in Iraq if al-Qa’ida members ... We have credible reporting that al-Qa’ida leaders sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire WMD capabilities”) that continues today.

“Members of al Qaeda would sometimes visit Baghdad where they would meet the Iraqi intelligence chief in a safe house ... The Iraqi intelligence chief and two other [Iraqi Intelligence Service] officers met at bin Laden’s farm and discussed bin Laden’s request for IIS technical assistance,” Andrew Sullivan’s Web site quotes from a leaked Oct. 27 intelligence memo from undersecretary of defense for policy Douglas J. Feith to the same Senate committee.

“[A senior al Qaeda operative] said he was told by an al Qaeda associate that he was tasked to travel to Iraq (1998) to establish a relationship with Iraqi intelligence to obtain poisons and gases training. After the USS Cole bombing in 2000, two al Qaeda operatives were sent to Iraq for [chemical and biological weapons] training beginning in Dec 2000. Iraqi intelligence was ‘encouraged’ after the embassy and USS Cole bombings to provide this training,” Sullivan continues.

Most of the memo information is like this: Such and such sought a meeting for some purpose; such and such met with the intention of some other purpose. Although the massive amounts of data being revealed begins to sway me to thinking, again, that there was some link, it still seems odd that the same sources and writers, over the course of more than a year of dramatic change, find themselves unable to state things more positively: Such and such Iraqi taught such and such Al Qaeda member how to do this in return for X amount of money or prohibited materials.

I’m not criticizing; on the contrary, I respect the sources and writers for not overstepping the bounds of intelligence analysis (if restraint is, indeed, what I’m seeing here). But that doesn’t make it any less odd that this memo and the data it quotes is full of weasel words and passive-voice writing that barely counts as assertions. As I’ve said before, I’ve met with lots of people, with lots of intentions, but it doesn’t mean I got anything from them, or them from me. And, since there have been attempts before to frame Iraq, albeit clumsy ones, is there concern that some of this data is of questionable value (but better quality)?

Surely no one should go as far as the Weekly Standard, which writes that “there can no longer be any serious argument about whether Saddam Hussein’s Iraq worked with Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda to plot against Americans.”

There can be, if only because even if Iraq provided support to Al Qaeda, that doesn’t necessarily constitute plotting against America or its people.

More disturbing is the question that, if we point the finger at proved Iraq and Al Qaeda collusion, do we really have any moral high ground? This country has also had some pretty nasty allies -- including Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden -- to whom we’ve provided deadly materials and the training to use them.