Not surprisingly, my mail indicates the Iraq/al-Qaeda naysayers are relying on the 9/11 Commission mind-bogglingly shoddy “investigation” of ties between Iraq and al Qaeda — and in so doing going even further than the Commission itself did. The Commission at least acknowledged that there was lots of evidence of ties, but drew a line between ties and “operational” ties in concluding there was no evidence of Iraqi complicity in any particular al Qaeda act of terrorism (meaning the embassy bombings, the Cole bombing, and the 9/11 attacks).

The media, of course picked this ball up and ran with it. So obsessed were they with the “Bush lied” angle, especially in the months before the election, that they further twisted the Commission’s gobbledygook, so that the conventional wisdom is now that there was no nexus AT ALL between Iraq and al Qaeda. Indeed, the Times continues this studious chicanery by, for example, avoiding at all costs an even-handed explanation that the Commission merely found there was no evidence of direct complicity in specific terror attacks. Instead, it blares in today’s editorial that Iraq had “nothing whatsoever” to do with terror attacks. That’s not far from me saying I have nothing whatsoever to do with publishing this post because I’m merely writing it and it’s NRO and it’s emir, K-Lo, who decide what gets posted on the site.

But even if what these guys were saying was true, it is a serious felony in this country to provide MATERIAL SUPPORT to terror organizations. That’s a law that was enacted in 1996, during the Clinton Administration, with broad bipartisan support, including by many Democrats still in congress who are complaining about the President’s allusions to 9/11. We enacted that law out of a recognition that terror networks cannot succeed without being facilitated in their day-to-day existence by others: recruiting, training, harboring, financing, etc.

Is there anyone who really doubts, on the basis of the record even as undeveloped as we know it is, that Saddam’s regime provided material support to al Qaeda such that it would be convicted if it were charged with that crime? Why is it that Saddam Hussein is somehow the only guy on the planet who has “nothing whatsoever” to do with terrorism unless his fingerprints end up on a bomb? For everyone else our standard is: if you help terrorists in any way, you’re gone. Not Iraq, though.