Some cynical commenter I cannot remember who or where said that this weekend our naughty Labour government would choose now to bury some bad news which it would like out there but ignored. Sunday is a bad day for such trickery, but maybe there was something along these lines today.
However, my inclination is to suspect that the real Story That Just Got Buried, at any rate in Britain (Instapundit was all over it from the start, just before the Saddam Captured story broke, i.e just after he was actually captured), so far, is this, in the Sunday Telegraph yesterday. Okay, not buried exactly. The Sunday Telegraph is not buried. Shall we say: temporarily drowned out, by which I mean ignored, for the time being, by the British electronic media.
Anyway, buried or not, it is a huge story, if true:
A document discovered by Iraq’s interim government details a meeting between the man behind the September 11 attacks and Abu Nidal, the Palestinian terrorist, at his Baghdad training camp. Con Coughlin reports.
For anyone attempting to find evidence to justify the war in Iraq, the discovery of a document that directly links Mohammed Atta, the al-Qaeda mastermind of the September 11 attacks, with the Baghdad training camp of Abu Nidal, the infamous Palestinian terrorist, appears almost too good to be true.
So, ergo, it cannot be true. Right? Too good.
But what if it is true? I know, politicians – Tony Blair even – telling the truth, whatever next? But suppose, just suppose, that the Powers That Be have known all along and for absolute sure that Saddam and Al Qaeda were totally in bed with each other, but that they could not reveal how they knew because had they revealed their evidence that would have jeopardised, you know, ongoing operations, i.e. their source(s) close to Saddam? But could it be that this has now changed, what with SH now being safely in the bag? That makes the most sense of everything to me, not least the curious behaviour of our Prime Minister, apparently so willing to hang himself out to dry over this war, but actually sucking his critics into what a spin doctoral friend of mine calls a “killing ground”? “I told you to trust me. You should have.” I can hear it now.
I do not have time to comment at any more length as I am now off to an impromptu Samizdata social, but Melanie Phillips, to whom my thanks for reminding me that I had read this story yesterday and like her been very struck by it, does comment some more. So go read her.
Written in a rush. So apologies for misprints and/or contorted prose, which I reserve the right to clean up later.
I’m a little hestitant to trust The Telegraph. I don’t recall the particulars, but I think those guys tend to get things wrong frequently.
But either way, I agree: it will be interesting to see if it pans out.
I’ve been suspecting the same of Bush for quite some time. I believe it’s completely justified for the reasons you mentioned as well as other related ones (ie secret strategy). It strikes me as being rather like ‘retreating’ into a carefully prepared trap.
I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see.
It’s gotten a little play in Chicago on WLS AM (our talk radio) yesterday.
And Brit Hume also mentioned it today.
We can only hope some of it holds. But it doesn’t matter, the world will move the goal posts again.
Interesting note via Instapundit.
My Brit girlfriend made something of an incisive observation earlier today. She noted that one can tell the fabric of Western political civilization is truly being changed by the internet in the way advocates were claiming it would be because the smarter American commentators were finally jumping the gun on the dirty little natives.
I was skeptical about the claim until I considered the implications. Consider- the average person, and the average political type, get nearly all their information from a media that is now fully accessible in (nearly) complete ways across the pond. Aside from the quite frankly overrated daily experience of living where you comment on, there is very little that an American citizen in the US would have on a British commentor living in Britain, save inside cultural knowledge and the experience of day to day living.
To be sure, this lack of daily experience would be a large difference in the lumpenintelligentsia, but it won’t be an impediment for the sharpest tacks in the box, who often have the advantage of outsider perspective. I certainly know my girlfriend has had some devasatating commentary as an outsider, even before coming to The Fruited Plains of Majesty. This despite the drawback of having a merely english intellect (to be fair, it is a good one, for a Brit).
I’ve also noted something I’ve never seen at Samizdata- accurate commentary. There is something in the American political scene that seems to truly stump observers from deeper understanding, which goes triple for foreign observers, so the bar is rather low. But Samizdata almost makes a habit of showing up that truism, to your undying credit.
It used to be only Americanized UK types like Hitchens or Sullivan seemed to have much of an understanding. Despite your rather standard ideological blinkers, you’ve managed to transcend it. Many kudos to you for it. It certainly underlines the change in politics brought about by the internet.
Interesting. I note that hardline-isolationist Jim Henley over at his Unqualified Offerings post has trashed the story, saying Con Coughlin, the reporter in question, is unreliable at best. Hmmm. We shall see. Meanwhile, I note that Steve Hayes’ story in the Weekly Standard a few weeks ago pointing to possible numerous links between Iraq and al Quaeda prior to 9/11 has fizzled out. What gives? Do these stories have genuine credibility or is the peacenik media establishment determined to crush them?
I think we should keep our feet on the gas with this stuff.
The article also reports:
The second item contains a report of how Iraqi intelligence, helped by “a small team from the al-Qaeda organisation”, arranged for an (unspecified) shipment from Niger to reach Baghdad by way of Libya and Syria.
Iraqi officials believe this is a reference to the controversial shipments of uranium ore Iraq acquired from Niger to aid Saddam in his efforts to develop an atom bomb, although there is no explicit reference in the document to this.
I thought the whole Nigeria Uranium thing was exposed as a hoax by UN inspectors ages ago ?
I thought the whole Nigeria Uranium thing was exposed as a hoax by UN inspectors ages ago ?
Naw, it was Niger uranium claim that the Brits still stand by (what else would a high level Iraqi delegation have been doing in Niger? Buying chickpeas?), even though former US ambassador and current media whore Joseph Wilson was unable to get anyone from Niger to fess up, despite drinking mint tea with them!
What I love about this story is that both this story and the capture of Saddam are being spun by the barking moonbats as publicity ploys by the Bush administration. Of course, if the Bushes arranged for the Abu Nidal/Atta story to come out this weekend, why did they also arrange for it to get buried by the Saddam story?
Unless they want us to think that they would never step on their own story like this, to throw us off the scent!
The truth is out there.
This one ended up getting exposed even faster than usual:
http://msnbc.msn.com/Default.aspx?id=3741646&p1=0
I guess people must be getting quicker with practice debunking the Telegraph’s forgeries.