Where the report isn't tendentious, it is sloppy. Key names are misspelled; it's "Shakir" on one page, and "Shakhir" on another, which might be thought trivial. But consider: The writers of the report seem not to understand that "Shaykh Salman al-Awdah" and "Shaikh Sulayman al-Udah" is the same person and that he was an important spiritual mentor to al Qaeda and its leadership. At another point, the report claims that Saddam Hussein considered al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi an "outlaw." In the body of the report, the claim is attributed to a senior Iraqi official; in its conclusions the same information is attributed to an "al Qaeda detainee."

Where the report isn't tendentious and sloppy, it's confused. Saddam Hussein and his cronies disclaim any relationship and yet the Senate report itself cites two authenticated documents in which the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) itself discussed the "relationship" between Iraq and al Qaeda. A 1992 document notes that bin Laden is "a Saudi opposition official in Afghanistan" and claims "the Syria [IIS] section has a relationship with him." An Iraqi Intelligence document describing the connections between Iraq and al Qaeda in 1997 notes that "through dialogue and agreements we will leave the door open to further develop the relationship and cooperation between both sides."

In its conclusions, the Senate report once again sets aside this documentary evidence of a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda and defers to the claims of Saddam Hussein and other Iraqi detainees. "Postwar findings indicate that Saddam Hussein was distrustful of al Qaeda and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from al Qaeda to provide material or operational support." Perhaps the documents don't count as "findings."

The Senate report is rife with such selective reading of the evidence. Consider the case of Ahmed Hikmat Shakir. Here is the report's treatment of Shakir.
The second lead centered on contact between Ahmad Hikat Shakir al-Azzawi, an Iraqi national, and [9/11] hijacker Khalid al-Mihdhar, in Malaysia in January 2000. Shakir was a part-time facilitator of Arab visitors at the Kuala Lumpur airport for the Iraqi embassy. Some information alleged that the Iraqi Embassy employee who gave Shakhir [sic] his job was a former IIS officer.

The CIA assessed that Shakir, "apparently acting in his capacity as an airport facilitator, met al-Mihdhar at the airport. The two then shared a taxi to a Kuala Lumpur hotel, although airport facilitators were not responsible for providing land transportation for passengers." The two were not spotted together again. The CIA noted that Shakir's departure from Malaysia only one week after helping al-Mihdhar, "raised suspicion about his connections and intentions." The CIA added that, "Shakir's travel and past contacts linked him to a worldwide network of Sunni extremist groups and personalities including suspects in the bombing of the 1993 World Trade Center and indirectly to senior al Qaeda associates. His relationship with the embassy employee could suggest a link between Baghdad and Shakir's extremist contacts, but it could also be a case of an Iraqi expatriate finding a temporary job for a fellow national.

After Shakir's capture in 2002, a foreign government service working in partnership with the CIA reported that Shakir was not affiliated with al Qaeda and had no connections to the IIS. The information said there was "no link, clue or hint to any foreign intelligence service, radical religious group or terrorist operation."

To summarize what the report acknowledges: An Iraqi national with known contacts to Sunni extremists and employed by the Iraqi Embassy in Malaysia, facilitated the travel of a 9/11 hijacker and then disappeared one week after the encounter. That alone is interesting. Now consider what the report leaves out.

Not only did Shakir abruptly leave Malaysia one week after he helped al-Mihdhar, he had begun his job at the Iraqi Embassy only two months earlier. The Iraqi Embassy controlled his schedule. Among Shakir's "contacts" with men the report describes only as "Sunni extremists" were Musab Yasin, an Iraqi who is the brother of Abdul Rahman Yasin, discussed above for his participation in the 1993 World Trade Center attack; Ibrahim Suleiman, a Kuwaiti native whose fingerprints were found on the bombmaking manuals authorities allege were used in preparation for that attack; Zahid Sheikh Mohammed, brother of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the September 11 attacks; and Abu Hajer al Iraqi, described in U.S. court documents as Osama bin Laden's "best friend."

The Senate report tells us that "some information alleged" that Shakir's Iraqi Embassy contact had been affiliated with Iraqi Intelligence. That information also came from an Iraqi detainee. Why is it treated with skepticism when the claims of other detainees are accepted as fact?

We cite the Shakir case not because it indicates that the Iraqi regime had foreknowledge or directed the 9/11 attacks. Rather, it stands as yet another example of the Senate report's selective use of evidence and the alacrity with which its authors sought to reject alleged Iraqi ties to al Qaeda.

One of the few areas where the Senate report provides new information concerns the presence of Abu Musab al Zarqawi in Iraq before the war. According to the Senate report: "A postwar CIA assessment on al-Zarqawi notes that both captured former regime documents and former regime officials show that the IIS did respond to a foreign request for assistance in finding and extraditing al-Zarqawi for his role in the murder of U.S. diplomat Lawrence [sic] Foley. In the spring of 2002, the IIS formed a 'special committee' to track down al-Zarqawi, but was unable to locate and capture him." Those documents "also show that lower-level IIS units attempted to search for the individual."

Taken together with detainee debriefings, the documents, if authentic, certainly raise questions about the Bush administration's prewar claims, backed by CIA director George Tenet, that Zarqawi was being harbored by the Iraqi regime. The Senate report quotes a 2005 CIA analysis that concluded: "The regime did not have a relationship, harbor, or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi and his associates."

The CIA report may be right. But there are several additional facts to consider in evaluating the Zarqawi-Iraq relationship, only one of which made it into the Senate report. The report notes that the Iraqi Intelligence Service received information from a foreign government service on five individuals suspected of playing a role in the assassination of U.S. AID worker Laurence Foley. One of those individuals, Abu Yasim Sayyem, was captured in early 2003.

According to the Senate report an IIS officer "was shocked when the Director of his division ordered Sayyem to be released. According to the Iraqi official, the Director of his division told him that Saddam Hussein ordered Sayyem's release." The IIS officer dismissed the possibility that the IIS was involved with al Qaeda or Zarqawi and speculated that Saddam intervened to free Sayyem because he might fight U.S. forces in the event of an invasion of Iraq.

Five additional facts not included in the Senate report provide important context. According to the July 2004 Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report on Iraq, Abu Zubaydah, a top-ranking al Qaeda official in U.S. custody, told interrogators "that he was not aware of a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda" and that he found such a relationship "unlikely." Zubaydah "also said, however, that any relationship would be highly compartmented and went on to name al Qaeda members who he thought had good relations with the Iraqis." Among those he named? Abu Musab al Zarqawi. From the July 2004 Senate report: "Abu Zubaydah indicated that he had heard that an important al Qaeda associate, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, and others had good relationships with Iraqi Intelligence." As noted, detainee testimony should be treated with skepticism. But Zubaydah, who provided both good information and bad in his debriefings, was in a position to know about Zarqawi's associations. The two men planned a millennium attack on the Radisson Hotel in Amman, Jordan, in 1999.

Zarqawi received medical treatment at a Baghdad hospital known for treating senior Iraqi regime officials. (Initial reports that he had his leg amputated were wrong. Subsequent reporting suggests Zarqawi was treated for nasal problems.) In a 2005 interview with Al-Hayat, Jordan's King Abdullah said: "We had information that he entered Iraq from a neighboring country, where he lived, and what he was doing. We informed the Iraqi authorities about all this detailed information we had, but they didn't respond." Jordanian intelligence continues to believe that the Iraqi regime knowingly harbored Zarqawi.

Muhammad al Masari, a known al Qaeda mouthpiece, told the editor of the Arabic-language newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi, Abdel Bari Atwan, that Saddam reached out to al Qaeda--and Zarqawi--after the fall of the Taliban in 2001 and provided funding for al Qaeda operatives to relocate to Iraq. "According to Masari, Saddam saw that Islam would be key to a cohesive resistance in the event of invasion. Iraqi army commanders were ordered to become practicing Muslims and to adopt the language and spirit of the jihadis. On arrival in Iraq, Al-Qaeda operatives were put in touch with these commanders, who later facilitated the distribution of arms and money from Saddam's caches."

Finally, when Zarqawi returned to Iraq after the war, he teamed up almost immediately with a cadre of former Iraqi Intelligence officials to conduct attacks on U.S. troops and softer targets in Iraq.

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-livin' in the terminally flippant zone