BY JAMES TARANTO <br />Friday, March 24, 2006 <br /><br />Who's Lying Now? <br /><br />Those Saddam documents are coming out, and there are strong suggestions--not surprisingly to some of us--that the notion that he had nothing to do with al Qaeda is a myth. ABC News reports: <br /><br />A newly released prewar Iraqi document indicates that an official representative of Saddam Hussein's government met with Osama bin Laden in Sudan on February 19, 1995, after receiving approval from Saddam Hussein. Bin Laden asked that Iraq broadcast the lectures of Suleiman al Ouda, a radical Saudi preacher, and suggested "carrying out joint operations against foreign forces" in Saudi Arabia. According to the document, Saddam's presidency was informed of the details of the meeting on March 4, 1995, and Saddam agreed to dedicate a program for them on the radio. The document states that further "development of the relationship and cooperation between the two parties to be left according to what's open [in the future] based on dialogue and agreement on other ways of cooperation." The Sudanese were informed about the agreement to dedicate the program on the radio. <br /><br />The report then states that "Saudi opposition figure" bin Laden had to leave Sudan in July 1996 after it was accused of harboring terrorists. It says information indicated he was in Afghanistan. "The relationship with him is still through the Sudanese. We're currently working on activating this relationship through a new channel in light of his current location," it states. <br /><br />As ABC notes, this does not prove "that the two parties did in fact enter into an operational relationship." But it does blow out of the water the silly notion that secular Saddam and fundamentalist bin Laden could not possibly find common ground. <br /><br />This actually never made sense; history is replete with examples of ideologically opposed nations uniting against a common enemy. The Soviet Union did it with both Nazi Germany and the U.S. during World War II. The current Syrian regime is a secular Baathist thugocracy just like the old Iraqi one, but the Syrian dictators Assad & Son were bitter rivals of their Iraqi counterpart and strong allies of the mad mullahs who run Iran. "Saddam and al Qaeda could never have anything to do with each other" stands exposed as a Big Lie of the left and the isolationist right. <br /><br />Daily Kos diarist "SusanG" offers an interesting window into the mentality of the anti-anti-Saddam left: <br /><br />I also find it disingenuous that the right claims sole ownership of the "Saddam is a bad, bad man" banner. Please. Compared to the liberal left, they are decades late to that particular party. Progressives were screaming into the void about Hussein's human rights violations, his gassing of the Kurds, his terrorizing of political opponents long, long, long before it conveniently bubbled up into the consciousness of the neocon right. While Donald Rumsfeld was famously shaking hands with and arming Hussein, we were saying: Bad idea. Bad man. This is gonna come back and bite us in the ***. <br /><br />It appears that the definition of a "progressive" is someone who believes the answer to any problem is "screaming into the void"--either against the problem or against anyone who does anything to solve the problem. How exactly this is supposed to lead to progress is a topic for another day. <br /><br />The Good News Is the Bad News Is Incomplete <br />USA Today reports that "high-profile critics are stepping up their complaints about the media's work" in Iraq: <br /><br />Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, long critical of what he sees as overly negative reporting, told reporters this month: "From what I've seen thus far, much of the reporting in the U.S. and abroad has exaggerated the situation." <br /><br />President Bush said Tuesday, "For every act of violence there is encouraging progress in Iraq that's hard to capture on the evening news." <br /><br />"Have we undercovered the good news?" asks John Burns, Baghdad bureau chief for The New York Times. "We probably have. But there's nothing willful about it. I would enter a plea of mitigation that we are overstretched." <br /><br />ABC News says it is listening to viewer complaints about Iraq coverage: <br /><br />Over the last 24 hours, ABC News has been reading hundreds of messages sent in by viewers in response to President Bush's claim that the media are undermining support for war in Iraq. <br /><br />Viewer opinions ran the gamut, but the vast majority believed the media were biased in their Iraq coverage. <br /><br />The media may not be covering good news from Iraq, but at least they're covering their failure to cover good news from Iraq. We guess it's a start.
