BACKWARDS MASKING: Now, it's probably the case that nothing will ever stop proponents of the Al Qaeda-Saddam link from subscribing to this fraudulent and refuted thesis. So, to gear up for revisiting the question in the future, this blog would like to propose a kind of online mixtape. What follows is an assortment of the best dubious Bush administration assertions that Iraq and Al Qaeda were allied against the United States. For those readers who care, I invite you to propose the best song we can match with each misleading statement. (Elastica's "Connection" is ruled out, however. Get creative.) Without further ado, IRAQ'D presents Unconnected Dots and Feedback Loops: The Best of the Iraq-Al Qaeda Link, Vol. 1.

Intro. 9/11 Commission Staff Statement No. 15, June 16, 2004:

Bin Laden also explored possible cooperation with Iraq during his time in Sudan, despite his opposition to Hussein's secular regime. Bin Laden had in fact at one time sponsored anti-Saddam Islamists in Iraqi Kurdistan. The Sudanese, to protect their own ties with Iraq, reportedly persuaded Bin Laden to cease this support and arranged for contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda. A senior Iraqi intelligence officer reportedly made three visits to Sudan, finally meeting Bin Laden in 1994. Bin Laden is said to have requested space to establish training camps, as well as assistance in procuring weapons, but Iraq apparently never responded. There have been reports that contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda also occurred after Bin Laden returned to Afghanistan, but they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship. Two senior Bin Laden associates have adamantly denied that any ties existed between Al Qaeda and Iraq. We have no credible evidence that Iraq and Al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States.

1. "Remember The E-Mail?" Exchange between President Bush and a reporter, June 15, 2004:

Q: The Vice President, who I see standing over there, said yesterday that Saddam Hussein has long-established ties to al Qaeda. As you know, this is disputed within the U.S. intelligence community. Mr. President, would you add any qualifiers to that flat statement? And what do you think is the best evidence of it?

PRESIDENT BUSH: Zarqawi. Zarqawi is the best evidence of connection to al Qaeda affiliates and al Qaeda. He's the person who's still killing. He's the person--and remember the email exchange between al Qaeda leadership and he, himself, about how to disrupt the progress toward freedom?

2. "Clearly Official Policy, All Right." Exchange between Vice President Cheney and Tim Russert, September 14, 2003:

MR. RUSSERT: The Washington Post asked the American people about Saddam Hussein, and this is what they said: 69 percent said he was involved in the September 11 attacks. Are you surprised by that?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: No. I think it's not surprising that people make that connection.

MR. RUSSERT: But is there a connection?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: We don't know. You and I talked about this two years ago. I can remember you asking me this question just a few days after the original attack. At the time I said no, we didn't have any evidence of that. Subsequent to that, we've learned a couple of things. We learned more and more that there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda that stretched back through most of the decade of the '90s, that it involved training, for example, on BW and CW, that al-Qaeda sent personnel to Baghdad to get trained on the systems that are involved. The Iraqis providing bomb-making expertise and advice to the al-Qaeda organization.

We know, for example, in connection with the original World Trade Center bombing in '93 that one of the bombers was Iraqi, returned to Iraq after the attack of '93. And we've learned subsequent to that, since we went into Baghdad and got into the intelligence files, that this individual probably also received financing from the Iraqi government as well as safe haven.

Now, is there a connection between the Iraqi government and the original World Trade Center bombing in '93? We know, as I say, that one of the perpetrators of that act did, in fact, receive support from the Iraqi government after the fact. With respect to 9/11, of course, we've had the story that's been public out there. The Czechs alleged that Mohamed Atta, the lead attacker, met in Prague with a senior Iraqi intelligence official five months before the attack, but we've never been able to develop anymore of that yet either in terms of confirming it or discrediting it. We just don't know.

MR. RUSSERT: We could establish a direct link between the hijackers of September 11 and Saudi Arabia.

VICE PRES. CHENEY: We know that many of the attackers were Saudi. There was also an Egyptian in the bunch. It doesn't mean those governments had anything to do with that attack. That's a different proposition than saying the Iraqi government and the Iraqi intelligent service has a relationship with al-Qaeda that developed throughout the decade of the '90s. That was clearly official policy.

3. "Sources of Varying Reliability." Letter from former DCI George Tenet to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, October 7, 2002:

Regarding Senator Bayh's question of Iraqi links to al- Qa'ida, Senators could draw from the following points for unclassified discussions:

Our understanding of the relationship between Iraq and al- Qa'ida is evolving and is based on sources of varying reliability. Some of the information we have received comes from detainees, including some of high rank.

We have solid reporting of senior level contacts between Iraq and al-Qa'ida going back a decade.

Credible information indicates that Iraq and al-Qa'ida have discussed safe haven and reciprocal non-aggression.

Since Operation Enduring Freedom, we have solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of al-Qa'ida members, including some that have been in Baghdad.

We have credible reporting that al-Qa'ida leaders sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire WMD capabilities. The reporting also stated that Iraq has provided training to al-Qa'ida members in the areas of poisons and gases and making conventional bombs.

Iraq's increasing support to extremist Palestinians, coupled with growing indications of a relationship with al- Qa'ida, suggest that Baghdad's links to terrorists will increase, even absent US military action.

4. "Any Given Day (Senior Al Qaeda Leader Medicinal Mix)." Televised primetime speech delivered by President Bush, October 7, 2002:

We know that Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network share a common enemy--the United States of America. We know that Iraq and al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade. Some al Qaeda leaders who fled Afghanistan went to Iraq. These include one very senior al Qaeda leader who received medical treatment in Baghdad this year, and who has been associated with planning for chemical and biological attacks. We've learned that Iraq has trained al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases. And we know that after September the 11th, Saddam Hussein's regime gleefully celebrated the terrorist attacks on America.

Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists. Alliance with terrorists could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving any fingerprints.

5. "You Can't Always Distinguish What You Want." Remarks at the White House with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, September 25, 2002:

Q: Mr. President, do you believe that Saddam Hussein is a bigger threat to the United States than al Qaeda?

PRESIDENT BUSH: That's a--that is an interesting question. I'm trying to think of something humorous to say. (Laughter.) But I can't when I think about al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. They're both risks, they're both dangerous. The difference, of course, is that al Qaeda likes to hijack governments. Saddam Hussein is a dictator of a government. Al Qaeda hides, Saddam doesn't, but the danger is, is that they work in concert. The danger is, is that al Qaeda becomes an extension of Saddam's madness and his hatred and his capacity to extend weapons of mass destruction around the world.

Both of them need to be dealt with. The war on terror, you can't distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror. And so it's a comparison that is--I can't make because I can't distinguish between the two, because they're both equally as bad, and equally as evil, and equally as destructive.

6. "Bulletproof." Remarks to the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, September 27, 2002:

Before I left for Poland I gathered some thoughts with a couple of people who work with me--Paul Wolfowitz and others. We said why don't we get this into the intelligence community, let them scrub it over the next week or so, see if they can find out what portion of it can be made public. They did, they came back, we ended up with five or six sentences that were bullet-proof. We could say them, they're factual, they're exactly accurate. They demonstrate that there are in fact al Qaeda in Iraq. But they're not photographs, they are not beyond a reasonable doubt, they in some cases are assessments from a limited number of sources. They're in some cases hard information that were we to release it would reveal a method of gathering it. And it seems to me that if our quest is for proof positive we probably will be left somewhat unfulfilled.

7. "Fundamental Concerns." Interview with Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz by Sam Tanenhaus, May 10, 2003:

There have always been three fundamental concerns. One is weapons of mass destruction, the second is support for terrorism, the third is the criminal treatment of the Iraqi people. ...

That second issue about links to terrorism is the one about which there's the most disagreement within the bureaucracy, even though I think everyone agrees that we killed 100 or so of an al Qaeda group in northern Iraq in this recent go-around, that we've arrested that al Qaeda guy in Baghdad who was connected to this guy Zarqawi whom Powell spoke about in his UN presentation. That second issue about links to terrorism is the one about which there's the most disagreement within the bureaucracy, even though I think everyone agrees that we killed 100 or so of an al Qaeda group in northern Iraq in this recent go-around, that we've arrested that al Qaeda guy in Baghdad who was connected to this guy Zarqawi whom Powell spoke about in his UN presentation.

8. "Interesting Observations." Press conference by Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, June 4, 2003:

In the course of its work, this team, in reviewing the intelligence that was provided to us by the CIA and the intelligence community, came up with some interesting observations about the linkages between Iraq and al Qaeda....

I don't think it's all that unusual or hard to understand. If a large amount of material is reviewed by fresh eyes--I mean, this--I think this would apply to--you know, any intelligent people sitting down with this pile of intelligence, looking it over, reading it over, has a chance of finding certain things in it. I mean, ask yourself why new history books get written about old events. I mean, people look over very often the very same material. But in light of experience or just because they see something that nobody had seen before, certain connections become clear or appear, and, you know, new hypotheses get developed and new facts surface. I mean, it's not that mysterious.

9. "Sinister Nexuses." Address to the United Nations Security Council by Secrerary of State Colin Powell, February 5, 2003:

What I want to bring to your attention today is the potentially much more sinister nexus between Iraq and the al-Qaida terrorist network, a nexus that combines classic terrorist organizations and modern methods of murder. Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi an associate and collaborator of Usama bin Laden and his al-Qaida lieutenants....

Baghdad has an agent in the most senior levels of the radical organization Ansar al-Islam that controls this corner of Iraq. In 2000, this agent offered al-Qaida safe haven in the region. After we swept al-Qaida from Afghanistan, some of those members accepted this safe haven. They remain there today.

10. "Long Established." Speech for the James Madison Institute by Vice President Cheney, June 14, 2004:

Saddam Hussein ... had long established ties with al Qaeda.