Snow joins Saddam/al Qaeda chorus

It's been common knowledge among news junkies for years. The president denied it just a couple of weeks ago. The Senate Intelligence Committee just refuted it (again) in a recent report. But everyone else in the administration is publicly insisting that Saddam Hussein had ties to al Qaeda, giving us all the justification we needed to launch the disastrous invasion.

At least Tony Snow had a different take on contrary evidence. Cheney and Rice just claimed that they hadn't seen any of the reports that there was no connection between Saddam and al Qaeda. Snow settled on dismissive scorn, and tried to define down the 'relationship,' perhaps hoping the press would just accept his definition of the term and ignore future White House attempts to make the false claim:

SNOW: And there was a relationship in this sense: Zarqawi was in Iraq. Al Qaida members were in Iraq. They were operating, and in some cases operating freely. From Iraq, Zarqawi, for instance, directed the assassination of an American diplomat in Amman, Jordan.

But did they have, you know, a corner office at the Mukhabarat? No. You know, were they getting a line item in Saddam’s budget? No.

There was no direct operational relationship, but there was a relationship. They were in the country. And I think you understand that the Iraqis knew they were there. That’s the relationship.

QUESTION: Saddam Hussein knew they were there. That’s it for the relationship?

SNOW: That’s pretty much it.

QUESTION: The Senate report said they didn’t turn a blind eye to that.

SNOW: The Senate report — rather than get — you know what? I don’t want to get into the vagaries of the Senate report. But it is pretty clear, among other things, again, that were Al Qaida operators inside Iraq, and they included Zarqawi, they included a cleric who had been described as the best friend of bin Laden who was delivering sermons on TV.

By this logic, since the White House claims to know that there are terrorist cells operating in the US, they have a relationship with the terrorists.