Short-bus journalism (Part III)

The 9/11 Commission, in its "Statement No. 15," concludes with, "We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States." Within hours, this was being broadcast over my radio as "no evidence of cooperation," period, with no elaboration.

Now, one can make the case that al Qaeda and the Mukhabarat never ever discussed specific operational matters before attacking American targets. I have my doubts, but I understand that there is a case to be made against that kind of cooperation. But the assertion that they did not cooperate at all is so extensively discredited by mountains of intelligence material that one must seriously doubt the competence of the reporters working the Washington beat. I mean, when American soldiers first drove into Baghdad they were practically tripping over al Qaeda retirees lounging in their Iraqi villas, for crying out loud. The coalition has hauled reams of documents out of Iraq's own ministries detailing meeting after meeting, contact after contact with the international jihadists. A year and a half of this stuff, and the reporters themselves haven't noticed?

While it is possible that a few ideologically-driven reporters are taking the opportunity to slightly misquote the Commission and be deliberately misleading, I think for the most part we are seeing simple incompetence.