Ok, now this is some funny shite. The CIA and the Department of Defense is upset because the Office of Special Plans inside the Pentagon dared to disagree with the CIA when they ignored all the evidence that Saddam was incohoots with al-Qaeda:
Some of the Pentagon’s prewar intelligence work, including a contention that the CIA underplayed the likelihood of al-Qaida connections to Saddam Hussein, was inappropriate but not illegal, a Defense Department investigation has concluded.
In a report to be presented to Congress on Friday, the department’s inspector general said former Pentagon policy chief Douglas J. Feith had not engaged in illegal activities through the creation of special offices to review intelligence.
Inappropriate? Bringing up the truth is inappropriate now?
Asked to comment on the IG’s findings, Feith said in a telephone interview that he had not seen the report but was pleased to hear that it concluded his office’s activities were neither illegal nor unauthorized. He took strong issue, however, with the IG’s finding that some activities had been "inappropriate."
"The policy office has been smeared for years by allegations that its pre-Iraq-war work was somehow ‘unlawful’ or ‘unauthorized’ and that some information it gave to congressional committees was deceptive or misleading," Feith said.
Feith called "bizarre" the inspector general’s conclusion that some intelligence activities by the Office of Special Plans, which was created while Feith served as the undersecretary of defense for policy –the top policy position under Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld–were inappropriate but not unauthorized.
I have plenty of evidence chronicled in my blog here that Saddam did indeed have connections with al-Qaeda, and unfortunately for the left, none of it is "inappropriate".
Imagine, disagreeing with the status quo and it’s inappropriate!
The MSM has already got its headlines made up, take a look:
But guess what the AP’s headline was:
Holy cow! The AP looks sane next to al-Reuters and the NYT’s. What’s this world coming to? But wait, read the rest of the article and you will see that there has not been a tear in the space-time continium, it’s as biased as ever.
Powerline’s take:
This is a lesson in the perils of serving in a Republican administration. Now that a Democrat majority in Congress can join forces with the Democrats in the federal bureaucracies, Republicans who cross the bureaucrats can consider themselves lucky not to be indicted.
What will be lost in news accounts of the IG report and Levin’s fulminations is that Feith’s group was right. We know now that there were many connections between Saddam’s Iraq and al Qaeda, and that Islamic groups of various stripes, including those labeled "secular" by the CIA, are entirely capable of collaborating against their common enemies.
Oh, and one last thing:
"Saddam Hussein has given aid, comfort and sanctuary to terrorists, including al-Qaeda members"
Hillary Clinton (Oct 19th, 2002)
See author page
Bringing up the truth is always inappropriate/inconvenient for Lefties.