Pentagon Now CANCELS Release of Study Finding No Saddam-al Qaeda Link

[babylonsister]

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/03/military_tries_to_squelch_repo.php

Pentagon Tries to Squelch Report Showing No Link Between Iraq-Al Qaeda
By Paul Kiel - March 12, 2008, 3:20PM


Did you think that just because taxpayers funded a study that showed conclusively there was no operational link between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and Al Qaeda that it would be released without a fuss? Well, this is the Bush administration we're talking about here -- a group who've shown themselves over the years to be masters at disappearing inconvenient information. It looks like we've got another addition to our ever-growing catalog.

From ABC News:

The Bush Administration apparently does not want a U.S. military study that found no direct connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda to get any attention. This morning, the Pentagon cancelled plans to send out a press release announcing the report's release and will no longer make the report available online.

The report was to be posted on the Joint Forces Command website this afternoon, followed by a background briefing with the authors. No more. The report will be made available only to those who ask for it, and it will be sent via U.S. mail from Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Virginia.

It won't be emailed to reporters and it won't be posted online.

I have to say, though, that this method of squelching leaves much to be desired. Maybe they're losing their touch, but the way you squelch a report -- as the Army showed with a 2005 RAND Corporation report that upbraided the administration for inadequately preparing for the postwar occupation -- is to keep it really quiet. (Even better, as a cursory browse of our list will show, is to make sure the report never gets written at all.)

But McClatchy and ABC News have already published stories on the report's findings. And ABC even has a link (pdf) to the report's executive summary. And, really, some nosy reporter is just going to post a link to the entire report at some point if you're mailing the darn thing out. So what gives? I expect more.

[islandmkl]

1. they think that everybody already knows what it is they are not supposed to know...

[hadrons]

2. I bet this went farther than it was suppose to ....

the original report was to be printed once and used by Barney to paper train George ... AGAIN

[xultar]

3. Why waste the money. What idiots didn't know this. Even rethugs knew that...Saddam was secular

and Osama was not.

[tanyev]

4. Kick.

[spanone]

5. they answer to no one....congress is irrelevant.

[LuckyLib]

6. We wouldn't want this out to the public now, would we? (sigh) No, of course not. Just reinforces

what we already knew. This underscoring of reality was leaked a little too far. Bushco had to rein it in.

[Hissyspit]

7. This is the stupidest period in U.S. history by far.

Yes, there have been other stupid periods, but this period have those periods as example.