"The Amnesiac American Press"
Mood:  special
Now Playing: "There Goes My Everything" by Jack Greene
Whether you are an advocate or critic ---but most especially the latter--- of the War for Iraq, I daresay you have a moral obligation to read the new article in this week's Weekly Standard by Stephen F. Hayes and Thomas Joscelyn on the history of the Saddamites' relationship with al-Qaeda.

It is quite simply the most devastating array of facts yet brought together in proof of Saddam Hussein's terrorist ties to Osama and Zarqawi.

We have been told by Hudayfa Azzam, the son of bin Laden's longtime mentor Abdullah Azzam, that Saddam Hussein welcomed young al Qaeda members "with open arms" before the war, that they "entered Iraq in large numbers, setting up an organization to confront the occupation," and that the regime "strictly and directly" controlled their activities. We have been told by Jordan's King Abdullah that his government knew Abu Musab al Zarqawi was in Iraq before the war and requested that the former Iraqi regime deport him. We have been told by Time magazine that confidential documents from Zarqawi's group, recovered in recent raids, indicate other jihadists had joined him in Baghdad before the Hussein regime fell. We have been told by one of those jihadists that he was with Zarqawi in Baghdad before the war. We have been told by Ayad Allawi, former Iraqi prime minister and a longtime CIA source, that other Iraqi Intelligence documents indicate bin Laden's top deputy was in Iraq for a jihadist conference in September 1999.

All of this is new--information obtained since the fall of the Hussein regime. And yet critics of the Iraq war and many in the media refuse to see it. Just two weeks ago, President Bush gave a prime-time speech on Iraq. Among his key points: Iraq is a central front in the global war on terror that began on September 11. Bush spoke in very general terms. He did not mention any of this new information on Iraqi support for terrorism to make his case. That didn't matter to many journalists and critics of the war.

If digesting the facts of this article were something that the American public, as a whole, could easily do, it would almost make up for the often miserable job that the President and his Administration have done in justifying the War for Iraq. They have failed at this task too many times and in too many ways for me to fully understand.

But this article... It's very long and detailed, so even if you have to print the damned thing out and lay back on the couch with a soda pop, do it. Read it out loud. Re-read whole passages to get it straight. Walk around the block and mull it over.

But don't ever say again that our men and women in uniform who are fighting and dying in Iraq aren't engaged in a necessary struggle for our peace and security. They are there for a reason, friend.