LAST WEEK, the Washington Post (“Hussein’s Prewar Ties To Al-Qaeda Discounted”) covered the latest round in Senator Levin’s ongoing struggle to prove that the connection between Iraq and al Qaeda was nothing more than a fiction. Levin has been at this game for a while, and this time the Post‘s story centered on Levin’s request for the declassification of a report written by the Pentagon’s acting inspector general, Thomas F. Gimble. The report’s conclusion: a Pentagon analysis shop, once headed by former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas J. Feith, “developed, produced, and then disseminated alternative intelligence assessments on the Iraq and al-Qaida relationship, which included some conclusions that were inconsistent with the consensus of the Intelligence Community, to senior decision-makers.”

The inspector general determined that Feith’s shop did nothing illegal, but still maintained that his office’s analyses were “inappropriate.” Why? According to the inspector general, Feith & Co. did not sufficiently explain that their conclusions were at odds with the CIA’s (and the DIA’s) judgments. That was enough for Levin to go on the attack once again.