Who's Misleading Whom?
Power Line
New York Times reporters Michael Gordon and Jim Rutenberg lost no time in following up on the exhortation by new Public Editor Clark Hoyt to attack President Bush's view that we are fighting al Qaeda in Iraq. Their article is titled "Bush Distorts Qaeda Links, Critics Assert". Gordon and Rutenberg make no effort to disguise the fact that they are among the "critics."
But, as happens so often, it is the Times, not President Bush, that can't be relied on for the straight story. In the Weekly Standard, Thomas Joscelyn points out key areas where the Times' account is misleading. Read it all; here are some key paragraphs:
<<< The Times states that when Zarqawi relocated to Iraq he did so "with support from senior Qaeda leaders, American intelligence agencies believe." This directly contradicts what has been reported at various times over the past several years by the New York Times and other media outlets. A common argument that has been made is that Zarqawi wasn't really an al Qaeda operative until 2004, when he swore bayat (loyalty) to bin Laden and was made emir of al Qaeda in Iraq.
There was always evidence tying Zarqawi to al Qaeda (for example, he helped plan attacks with top al Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah at the turn of the millennium). But it is interesting to see that the intelligence officials quoted in this piece recognize the role that al Qaeda played in supporting Zarqawi's activities in Iraq all along....
... [T]he Times muddles the evidence tying Zarqawi to another of his sponsors inside Iraq, Saddam Hussein's regime:
****"Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian who became the leader of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, came to Iraq in 2002 when Saddam Hussein was still in power, but there is no evidence that Mr. Hussein's government provided support for Mr. Zarqawi and his followers." (emphasis added)***
>>>
This is simply not true. The authors may disagree with the notion that the evidence is conclusive, but to say there is "no evidence" is demonstrably false. In this piece I summarized what three high-level al Qaeda associates (including one who actually recruits jihadis to send to Iraq for suicide bombing missions) had to say about Zarqawi and his associates' ties to Saddam's regime prior to the war.
The Times ignores another important prewar link between Saddam's regime and al Qaeda. The authors state that "Abu Ayyub al-Masri is an Egyptian militant who emerged as the successor of Mr. Zarqawi, who was killed near Baquba in an American airstrike last year." This is correct, but the paper does not bother to report any of al-Masri's history inside Saddam's Iraq. Again according to George Tenet, al-Masri was in Baghdad throughout much of 2002, cooperating with Zarqawi and setting up al Qaeda cells. It is worth remembering that al-Masri was a top aide to al Qaeda's number 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, since 1982! It seems highly unlikely that a top terrorist like al-Masri could operate in Baghdad without Saddam's tacit approval, at the very least.
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