The Bush administration is trying to have its cake and eat it too.

They sold the war in Iraq partially by insinuating that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11. Dick Cheney stated his belief that Muhammed Atta met with Iraqi intelligence in Prague, for instance, on several appearances on Meet the Press (despite U.S. intelligence finding the story unconvincing). Now that cooler heads have prevailed and the 9/11 panel has examined the evidence, the administration is claiming that they meant to paint no such picture.

Administration officials and their allies in the punditry now speak of Hussein-al Qaeda "ties," "relationships," and "connections." These are weasel words. The people using them want to make a claim without taking ownership of the claim. The vagueness of such words give rise to any number of interpretations. Before the Iraq war, these words suggested Iraqi complicity in 9/11; today, they mean something less consequential--like one party attempting to communicate with the other.

"The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al Qaeda," President Bush remarked yesterday, "is because there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda." Earlier in the week, Dick Cheney announced that Saddam Hussein "had long established ties with al Qaeda." In April, Chris Matthews asked Donald Rumsfeld ten times whether Iraq was involved in 9/11. Ten times, Rumsfeld played dodgeball to Matthews' hardball. Typical of Rumsfeld's non-answer answers was: "It's too complex a subject for me to answer yes or no."

No, it's not. Either they were involved, or they weren't. It's that clear.

The 9/11 Commission allows that contact may have existed between al Qaeda and the Hussein regime, but their report notes that the contact "did not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship." The panel declared: "We have no credible evidence that Iraq and Al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States."

If there is evidence of Hussein and bin Laden working together on a specific terrorist attack, please let us know. If not, kindly be quiet.

Dan, come now.

The entire idea of preemption, of treating states that harbor terrorists just as terrorists doesn't depend on some "collaborative" relationship being present. The commission did, in fact, cite long standing ties between Iraq and Al-Queda, but ruled out this "collaborative relationship" as it related to 9/11.

Now, the reason we treat states that harbor terrorists (and a regime that provides medical care for top Al Queda peeps would seem to me to lean towards harbor) is like the idea of fungible money.

You may be able to watch, monitor, stem a specific flow or tide of terrorism, but if states provide general support for terror groups - their increased effectiveness overall is dangerous, and a threat. There doesn't have to be "evidence of Hussein and bin Laden working together on a specific terrorist attack"

On another note - O'Reilly had one of the commissioners on last night and he very, very clearly said that the President was right and the newspaper headlines were wrong, and dangerously so.

The question stands: what specific past or future terrorist attack did al Qaeda and Hussein's Iraq collaborate on? If you acknowledge that the answer is none, what did we preempt? The answer is we prevented a terrorist attack that occurred in your imagination.

At least one prominent Bush administration official, Paul Wolfowitz, argued after 9/11 that we should pass up on attacking the nation that aided and supported al Qaeda--Afghanistan--in favor of the nation that you suggest has "ties" to al Qaeda. This is dangerous thinking.

The Bush administration is grasping at straws. So many of their arguments--WMDs, Atta-Iraq connection, Niger uranium, Iraq a democracy waiting to happen--for going to war have proved fallacious or wrong. The Iraqi-9/11 connection, which Cheney and others did make and you don't address in your post, is but one example of the faulty logic that went into going to war. If the media is wrong about not acknowledging some loosely defined "tie" between Hussein and bin Laden, then aren't the war hawks wrong about a much more serious claim: that Iraq had something to do with 9/11?

Dan, I disagree: http://www.thecrowe.com/index.php?p=284

Dan,

Again, collaboration is not necessary to create a danger. If Iraq aided Al Queda in just one, simple way (let's say giving Western-quality medical attention in Baghdad, for instance) and never helped plot a terrorist attack, then Iraq is making Al Queda tremendously more effective at doing what they do best: plot, plan, and carry out terrorist attacks.

And for the record, I'm sorry - I don't remember hearing the admin stumping for Iraq = 9/11. I remember a couple statements by Cheney that he quickly corrected (nuclear-related).

Perhaps they did make statements, I just haven't really seen them.

Then again, I supported the PaveIraq solution.

I am still wondering why we haven't "paved" Florida, or for that matter, DC; since Florida was kind enough to provide Al-Qaeda with flight training for 9/11 . . . talk about a "tie" of simple "collaboration." As for DC, I suppose since our very own government gave the 9/11 hijackers various forms of officially sanctioned entry into the country via various kinds of visas, and then refrained from making sure such guests leave when there visas had expired, well, I guess you could argue that a "collaboration" between our own government and Al-Qaeda clearly existed pre-9/11 which aided them in their terrorist efforts.

The only real connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda is the "Q" in their names. Preemptive wars are almost always unjust and usually (even worse) imprudent, as has been the case with the Iraq War.