Brokow is broken: Swaying media about an Iraq-Al Qaeda link
Dennis Byrne, a Chicago-area writer and public affairs consultant
Published July 5, 2004
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NBC anchor Tom Brokaw seemed shocked to find someone--anyone--who "still" believed in a link between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and Al Qaeda's terrorist network. Introducing his "exclusive" interview last week with new Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, Brokaw archly noted that here was someone who still believed in the connection, the emphasis on "still." As if the head of Iraq's government was in no position to agree with President Bush that a link existed.
Brokaw, sporting a safari ensemble as if he were somewhere in the wild, asked Allawi (attired in a business suit): <font size=3><font color=blue>"I know that you and others like you [emphasis added] are grateful for the liberation of Iraq. But can't you understand why many Americans feel that so many young men and women have died here for purposes other than protecting the United States?"<font size=4><font color=black> (In other words: How can you not agree that Bush, that jerk, lied to start a war for political reasons?)
Allawi's firm response--that a link existed--flummoxed The Anchor. <font size=3><font color=blue>"Prime Minister," Brokaw tsk-tsked, as if lecturing a schoolchild: "I'm surprised that you would make the connection between 9/11 and the war in Iraq."<font size=4><font color=black> Allawi, unfazed, pressed ahead, asserting more strongly that Hussein had relations with all kinds of extremists and terrorists, including Al Qaeda.
Brokaw, as so many of his colleagues, is dismissive of any evidence, old or new, that Iraq was linked with terrorists who were a threat to America. Such as:
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- Russian President Vladimir Putin, who opposed the war, said two weeks ago that Hussein's regime, in fact, posed a threat to the United States. Early in 2002, after Sept. 11, 2001, and before the Iraq war, Russian intelligence agencies had received information that Iraq was planning terrorist attacks against the U.S. In this, Putin has credibility because Russia formerly had close ties to Iraq.
- A few days later, American officials found a document that Iraqi intelligence agents and Osama bin Laden were in contact with each other in the mid-1990s. An internal report by the Iraqi intelligence service said the contacts were part of a broad effort by bin Laden to destabilize Saudi Arabia. It also stated that joint cooperation "should be allowed to develop freely through discussion and agreement." Initially reaching out to bin Laden was Udai Hussein, Saddam's late son and a chief enforcer.
- The 1998 U.S. indictment of bin Laden, during the Clinton administration, stated that Al Qaeda and Iraq reached an understanding on a number of projects, including joint cooperation and weapons development. Patrick Fitzgerald, now the U.S. attorney in Chicago, who worked on the indictment, described details of that link to the Sept. 11 commission.
Also in 1998, the Clinton administration used the link to justify the bombing of a Sudanese pharmaceutical plant in retaliation for deadly Al Qaeda attacks on two U.S. Embassies in East Africa. Stephen F. Hayes, the only journalist who seems willing to dig into the link, reported in The Weekly Standard that no fewer than six Clinton administration officials publicly cited the link, and two of them now are advisers to Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry.
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Waving away the possibility that any of this may be true,
many in the media feed us the naive assumption that Iraq,
run by a brutal dictator who declared war on its
neighbors, and swimming in a regional sea of terrorism,
was pristine in its refusal to have anything to do with Al
Qaeda. Absurd.
Instead, the media keep replaying the standard
mischaracterization of a few sentences in a Sept. 11
commission staff report, as if it proved that no link
existed. That's not what the report said. It found no
evidence of a link, not evidence that no link existed. The
difference is as subtle as the difference between night
and day.
Yet, denial of the link now is the cornerstone of the
latest attacks on the Iraq war and Bush. Constantly
pounded by irresponsible "journalism," it's no wonder that
polls show Americans becoming more critical of the war.
So, it was interesting to hear Hussein--sounding as if he was scripted by Hollywood's leading make-up artist, Michael Moore--accuse Bush of concocting reasons for the war to win the election. Moore, former Vice President Al Gore, Democratic critics and TV anchors are now joined by Hussein in making the reckless charge that Bush is willing to send Americans to their deaths for selfish political gain. Precious.
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