On Sunday a Republican member of the 9/11 Commission appeared on NBC's Meet The Press. He wanted to correct the record in favor of the Bush Administration. A few days earlier, the commission had released its conclusion with regard to a link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. There was none. Zippo. Nada, Zilch. With no WMD and no ties to al Qaeda, the Administration had exhausted its reasons for the invasion. George W. Bush again looked the fool.
This is where John Lehman comes in. He's the Republican commission member who appeared on Meet The Press. His mission? Demonstrate that Bush doesn't have a monopoly on ignorance. He succeeded nicely.
According to Lehman, there was a connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. That connection was not exactly insignificant. Get this: According to the Republican commission member, an Iraqi was involved in the planning of the September 11th attack. Lehman told NBC that documents found in a Baghdad archive "indicate that there is at least one officer of Saddam's Fedayeen, a lieutenant colonel, who was a very prominent member of al Qaeda."
The bin Laden follower was a man named Ahmad Hikmat Shakir Azzawimet. He met with two September 11th hikackers in January 2000 at Kuala Lumpur. If you are either with us or against us, then he's against us. As it turns out, there was a lieutenant colonel in Hussein's command named Hikmat Shakir Ahmad. Lehman couldn't help but notice something pretty spectacular. If you remove the first and fourth names of the al Qaeda operative then lop off the last name of the Iraqi colonel, you've got yourself a match! Saddam Hussein was allied with al Qaeda.
According to Lehman, "It's one more instance where this is an intriguing possibility that needs to be run to ground." He added, Sure we could have probably done that prior to the invasion, but what if it didn't pan out?
OVERHEARD: "Don't trust anybody whose middle initial is 'W.'"
--The Spaniard, from a conversation with Laird Byron Sander
