Look TL - George once said there was links then backed away because his intel departments corrected him. That started and fostered the belief in the American peoples that Saddam was AQ. This commission holds the line of the original intel that says nix to any serious links.
Can I just say "so what". This isn't earth shattering news outside of the states. This is just helping confirming to people internationally what George told them at the start of the war - no links. Most people I know believed the President when he corrected himself way back when the first started to go after Iraq.
I do not see the Admin as being guilty of any misinformation or deceit in respect of this and I don't see why anyone would see it as a negative honestly. You could take the view that many people world wide would have been happier with the whole war thing if he had been AQ, and I would suggest it is probable that the admin hasn't been active in discouraging the American people from believing what they want to believe (ie that a link exists).
I am just wondering why you think the finding is an issue TL, and what is the worst that is going to come of this? My view is that the finding is neither damaging nor compelling, nor interesting. In my view it is only going to serve to correct the misbelief of those that wanted to convince themselves there had to be a link.
On a side note - I had a chuckle yesterday about a story in my paper about our PM's visit to GW. There was a question to GW that they knew was going to be put by Australian press (regarding the opposition left who want to withdraw Australian troops from Iraq). They knew they had one question left from the Aussie press but they looked all over and couldn't see any hands up. They had to rebuff a couple of timorous advances from American journo's who were told they weren't Aussies. Finally they had their attention drawn to one furiously waving hand over in the left of the crowd that they had been overlooking. Our PM later quipped that he and George had not been able to see the journo for so long because they both looked right and had trouble when looking left
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