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.

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.”

For a dissection of the distortions in that Thursday, June 17, Times story, see an analysis of it, on the TimesWatch.org site, by the MRC’s Clay Waters: www.timeswatch.org

“Al Qaeda-Hussein Link is Dismissed,” declared a June 17 Washington Post front page headline. Friday’s inside the paper story, “Bush Defends Assertions of Iraq-Al Qaeda Relationship,” didn’t include a word from Hamilton. See: www.washingtonpost.com

USA Today on Thursday stacked this big headline at the top of its Thursday front page:
“No Iraq,
al-Qaeda
Link
Found”

     On Friday, inside the paper, USA Today ran a piece headlined, “Bush repeats there was an Iraq, al-Qaeda alliance; President: There were 'numerous contacts'” Near the very end, at least, reporter Judy Keen squeezed in a mention of Hamilton’s point:
     “Lee Hamilton, a former Indiana congressman who is the top Democrat on the commission, said he doesn't disagree with Cheney's assertions of bin Laden contacts with Iraq. 'I have trouble understanding the flap over this,' Hamilton said.
     “A commission official said the panel did not intend for its conclusions to be interpreted as a denial of any contacts between al-Qaeda and Iraq. The official said the commission concluded only that there was no connection between Saddam and Sept. 11. The comments were made to reporters on the condition that the official not be named. The official also said the commission hoped its findings would not set off a partisan storm.”

     A more detailed rundown of Thursday night, June 17, coverage on ABC, CBS and NBC:

-- ABC’s World News Tonight. After Terry Moran completed a report on problems on 9/11 with communication from Bush and Cheney to subordinates, which was “deeply flawed,” such as how it took a half hour for Cheney’s shoot down authorization to get to pilots, Jennings asked: “And Terry, just a couple of seconds left, continues to be a discrepancy between the commission’s findings and the President’s on whether al-Qaeda has a link to Saddam Hussein.”
Moran alluded to how Kean and Hamilton countered the media spin, but still managed to end on an anti-Bush note: “Well the President sticks by his guns and today actually the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the commission said they don’t see a discrepancy. But Mr. Bush now says what he sees were numerous contacts between Saddam and al-Qaeda. A year ago when he stood on that aircraft carrier deck he said Saddam Hussein was an 'ally’ of al-Qaeda. He’s changed his story today.”

     -- CBS Evening News. Over a picture of Saddam Hussein with “Al Qaeda Connection?” beneath, Dan Rather didn’t make even a vague reference to Kean or Hamilton as he acted as if it is Bush who should be on the defensive: “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 President Bush insisted again today that there was a quote 'relationship’ of some kind and defended his position.”
     Bush in cabinet room: “This administration never said the 9-11 attacks were orchestrated between Saddam and al-Qaeda. We did say there were numerous contacts between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.”
     Rather: “The President used those alleged contacts as one rationale for going to war against Iraq.”

-- NBC Nightly News. Tom Brokaw set up a full story on the subject: “And President Bush today personally challenged one of the most provocative conclusions of the 9/11 Commission, that there was no 'collaborative relationship’ between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. Today, despite that conclusion, President Bush insisted there was a relationship between the two. NBC’s David Gregory has more tonight from the White House. David?”

     Gregory began, as taken down by MRC analyst Brad Wilmouth: “Tom, both the President and the Vice President today denied the suggestions that they in any way exaggerated the connection between Saddam Hussein’s regime and al-Qaeda. Both today said there is solid evidence that supports not only the claim of contacts between those two, but some collaboration. And the President, speaking to reporters, again today attempted to justify taking out Saddam.”
     George W. Bush: “He was a threat because he was a sworn enemy to the United States of America just like al-Qaeda. Now, he was a threat because he had terrorist connections -- not only al-Qaeda connections, but other connections to terrorist organizations. Abu Nidal is one. He was a threat because he provided safe haven for terrorists like Zarqawi, who is still killing innocents inside of Iraq.”
     Gregory: “The Vice President, in an interview with CNBC’s Capital Report, elaborated on the connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda-linked terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.”
     Dick Cheney: “He was allowed to operate out of Baghdad. He ran the poisons factory in northern Iraq out of Baghdad, which became a safe harbor for Ansar al-Islam, as well as al-Qaeda fleeing Afghanistan. There clearly was a relationship there that stretched back over that period of time to at least May of ‘02, a year before we launched into Iraq.”
     Gregory concluded with what should have been the lead: “White House officials, who are certainly feeling the strain of these questions, today seized on a comment by the Democratic co-chairman of the 9/11 Commission. Lee Hamilton said today that he does not see much different between administration statements and the Commission’s report.”

The flap is understandable.

The Left was cocked and locked, on a hair trigger to maximize the political fallout of a report expected to demonstrate that the Bush Administration's failures were directly responsible for 9/11.

The report contains very little new information. The Left, all dressed up and not realizing they had no place to go, fell on their other pet peeve, the war with Iraq.

In military terms, both the Left (including Kerry), and their supporting media, are grossly overextended.

This ill advised salient, if properly managed, can be exploited to the full defeat of the Left's aspirations for the Presidency.

The key phrase, is "properly managed". Their necks are stretched way out on a chopping block here, if we coordinate and retaliate with a careful and well thought out series of rebuttals, both towards the media and towards the Left.

Revenge is a dish best served cold.

I look at it this way. John Kerry has only been repeating the half truths, omissions, and outright lies fed to him by the media. He's going to hit a wall when he's forced to debate with president Bush. All Bush has to do is tell the whole truth.

Prepare to watch a political beating like the world has never seen before.

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,”...Dan Rather...Tow Brokaw......Fox News this week featured writer Stephen Hayes, whose new book The Connection details years of consultation and cooperation between al-Qaeda and Saddam's regime in the planning, funding and operation of terrorist activities - competent journalists have no trouble getting the story straight - but then what would Peter, Dan, and Tom know about competent journalists?.....

They are so busy reading and posting the DNC talking points as news, they don't have time to bother with the facts.

They keep repeating it...even internationally. Will the clarification and truth ever get out? Only on FOX news and the internet. Send it to your friends.

I guess I just don't get it. How can they LIE and continually get away with it? When will people wake up and demand the truth on maindream media?

Like the true events of America gains in Iraq, finding about WMD, the freeing of millions of people, the lies that the kiltoons told and keep telling, the lies being old about America's elected President, the lies about---, the lies about--- the lies about--.

The American people know the truth, and it will show during debates, and in the voting booth.

Empty suit kerry and the dumb-o-crats are toast.

Great points.

I seeing this as a turning point, my view confirmed by Cheney's quick and forceful rebuttal.

Things seem quiet right now. The weekend should be interesting.

He's going to hit a wall when he's forced to debate with president Bush.

He's going to look like a sanctimonious prig with a boogger on his cheek.

And you know what's bad...Every night now Jay Leno is making a joke about this. About there is NO connection. There are people who only get their news from late night TV and it's infuriating.

Yes, both the weekend and the debates should be interesting.

On Sunday's political analysis shows, there won't be interruptions for rubbish.

During the debates, Kerry will have to not only think on the fly, but do so in such a way as to make twice the points (both sides of each issue) in the same time alloted for Bush to make one.

Sooooo....

How will the Dems take a loss in November?

They are foaming at the mouth and gnashing teeth now.

Will they cross the line to violence?

The American people know the truth, and it will show during debates, and in the voting booth.

Empty suit kerry and the dumb-o-crats are toast.

This is true! Dubya is gonna clean Kerry's clock!

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The Enemy Within!!!