Media Suppress Hamilton’s Scolding of
Misreporting of Iraq-Qaeda
The Republican Chairman and Democratic Vice Chairman of the 9-11 Commission on Thursday rejected the media’s widespread reporting that the commission’s report issued the day before had directly contradicted Bush administration statements about connections between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.
Yet on Thursday night ABC’s Peter Jennings declared that there “continues to be a discrepancy between the commission’s findings and the President’s on whether al-Qaeda has a link to Saddam Hussein,” and CBS anchor Dan Rather repeated how “the commission yesterday said it had found no credible evidence of a quote, 'collaborative relationship’ between al-Qaeda and Iraq -- no plotting together against the United States,” but, he added in treating President Bush as out of step, without mentioning how Kean and Hamilton had corrected CBS’s mis-reporting, “President Bush insisted again today that there was a quote 'relationship’ of some kind and defended his position.”
NBC’s Tom Brokaw took a similar tack, repeating how the commission had found “that there was no 'collaborative relationship’ between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.” But, Brokaw lectured, “despite that conclusion, President Bush insisted there was a relationship between the two.” NBC buried what should have been its lead. At the very end of his report, almost as an afterthought, David Gregory informed viewers of how “Lee Hamilton said today that he does not see much different between administration statements and the commission’s report.”
FNC’s Special Report with Brit Hume, but hosted by Jim Angle, on Thursday night played these clips of Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton made at an early afternoon press conference:
Kean: “Were there contacts between al-Qaeda and Iraq? Yes. Some of them are shadowy, but there’s no question they were there.”
Hamilton, two soundbites: “I must say I have trouble understanding the flap over this. The Vice President is saying, I think, that there were connections between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's government. We don't disagree with that.”
“So it seems to me that the sharp differences that the press has drawn, the media has drawn, are not that apparent to me.”
Thus Hamilton undermined the premise of two days of the media line on how the report supposedly undermined Bush and Cheney.
For a picture and bio of Vice Chairman Lee Hamilton: www.9-11commission.gov
Nonetheless, Judy Woodruff, at the top of CNN’s June 17 Inside Politics, portrayed Bush as the one out of step: “President Bush refuses to dismiss, one day after the 9/11 commission threw more cold water on the idea of an Iraq-al Qaeda connection.” The subsequent story by Kathleen Koch featured Bush’s cabinet room defense of his position on Iraq and al-Qaeda, but didn’t mention Hamilton’s remarks.
A half hour later, at 4pm EDT, however, Woodruff showcased the anti-Bush take of some other Democrats:
“Welcome back. The Bush administration may keep insisting there was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. But some top Democrats don't seem to be buying it. Today, Bush rival, John Kerry, again accused the President of misleading Americans when he made the case for war in Iraq. And here is what House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi had to say.”
CNN viewers then saw this soundbite from Pelosi: “Now that the 9-11 Commission has said that there is no evidence to support a collaborative effort -- relationship between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, the President has a responsibility to the American people to speak truth on this subject.”
Six hours later, in a report for NewsNight, Suzanne Malveaux gave five words to Hamilton. She began: “The 9-11 Commission says it has no evidence that Iraq had anything to do with the September 11th attacks. During a cabinet meeting the President maintained that the administration never made that claim.”
Bush in cabinet room: “This administration never said that the 9-11 attacks were orchestrated between Saddam and al-Qaeda. We did say there were numerous contacts between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.”
Lee Hamilton: “We don’t disagree with that.”
Malveaux proceeded to stress how “some on the 9-11 Commission continue to charge that the President and senior administration officials may have overstated the relationship between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda for political purposes.” Malveaux then played this from John Lehman on Inside Politics earlier in the day: “Certainly, some in the administration may have overplayed this to leave the implication that, that the intelligence services in Iraq participated or helped plan 9/11.” Malveaux cut off Lehman mid-sentence. The rest of his sentence directly contradicted Malveaux’s introduction to his soundbite: “...but that's not what the President said and it’s certainly not what our evidence supports.”
In fact, Lehman backed up Bush. But Malveaux ignored that. Told by Judy Woodruff that “the President said today that there is a connection and he said there was a connection, a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda,” Lehman endorsed Bush’s take over that of the news media: “The President’s correct. And the commission yesterday said exactly that. What the commission also said was there was no evidence of collaboration on any of the attacks against the United States. But we had previously pointed out that, particularly in Sudan, there is very hard evidence of collaboration on the X gas and other evidence, and additional contacts between Saddam's intelligence service and al Qaeda in the assistance in training in weapons, chemical and biological weapons, anthrax manufacture, and that's what we had in our report yesterday, but unfortunately, the New York Times sort of highlighted only one half of that.”
Keith Olbermann, on MSNBC’s Countdown on Thursday night, ignored Hamilton as he mocked the Bush-Cheney line, equating it to Bill Clinton’s “parsing” of words, the MRC’s Brad Wilmouth noticed: "Etymologists have the Clinton years to thank for bringing to our attention what the definition of 'is' is. At the Bush White House, meanwhile, it looks like some parsing of the word 'connection' is in order, as in, 'Is there a connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda or not?' On this delicate and divisive matter, we heard from the President once again today, once again asserting that the 9/11 Commission doesn't know its Iraq from its elbow."
George W. Bush in cabinet room: "The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al-Qaeda because there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda. This administration never said that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated between Saddam and al-Qaeda. We did say there were numerous contacts between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda."
Olbermann: "Got that? Saddam and the 9/11 attacks, no. Knew al-Qaeda in a general 'how the heck are you' kind of way, yes. As if, for emphasis, one could also see the Vice President tonight on our sister network, CNBC, saying pretty much the same thing."
Cheney on Capital Report: "On the question of whether or not there was any kind of a relationship, there clearly was a relationship. It's been testified to. The evidence is overwhelming. It goes back to the early '90s. It involves a whole series of contacts, high-level contacts between Osama bin Laden and Iraqi intelligence officials."
Olbermann: "Contacts, which the Commission claimed, resulted in Iraq not returning bin Laden's message. The Vice President also had some choice words for the New York Times and the media in general for getting, quote, 'all in a dither,' and distorting the story."
On Wednesday night’s World News Tonight, ABC’s Peter Jennings had insisted the commission had “unequivocally” contradicted what the administration had maintained, on the CBS Evening News John Roberts asserted that the commission had “directly contradicted one of President Bush’s justifications for going to war against Iraq” and on the NBC Nightly News David Gregory characterized the commission as “sharply at odds with what leading members of the administration continue to claim.” For more about Wednesday night coverage, see the June 17 CyberAlert: www.mediaresearch.org
Print outlets also ignored Hamilton’s rebuke of their bad reporting from the day before. After topping its front page Thursday with a story headlined, "Panel Finds No Qaeda-Iraq Plot Tie,” a Friday story on an inside page, “Bush and Cheney Talk Strongly of Qaeda Links With Hussein,” skipped Hamilton’s remarks. Reporters David Sanger and Robin Toner, however, did relay Vice President Cheney’s scolding of the Times’ distortion:
“Last night Mr. Cheney, who was the administration's most forceful advocate of the Qaeda-Hussein links, was more pointed, repeating in detail his case for those ties and saying that The New York Times's coverage yesterday of the commission's findings 'was outrageous.’
"'They do a lot of outrageous things,’ Mr. Cheney, appearing on Capital Report on CNBC, said of the Times, referring specifically to a four-column front page headline that read 'Panel Finds No Qaeda-Iraq Tie.’ Mr. Cheney added: 'The press wants to run out and say there's a fundamental split here now between what the president said and what the commission said.’
“He said that newspapers, including the Times, had confused the question of whether there was evidence of Iraqi participation in Sept. 11 with the issue of whether a relationship existed between Al Qaeda and Mr. Hussein's regime.”
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