THE FINAL REPORT of the September 11 Commission, to be released tomorrow, cites many examples of “friendly contacts” between Iraq and al Qaeda, while concluding that those contacts do not appear to have resulted in a “collaborative operational relationship” for “carrying out attacks against the United States,” according to sources familiar with the commission’s work. The findings in the final report appear to differ from last month’s Staff Statement No. 15 in several important respects.
The staff statement, which declared simply that Iraq-al Qaeda contacts did not appear to have resulted in a “collaborative relationship,” led several leading news outlets to suggest that the report contradicted Bush administration claims about the relationship. On June 17, 2004, a front-page Washington Post headline declared “Al Qaeda-Hussein Link Dismissed.” The New York Times weighed in with similar headline that same day: “Panel Finds No Qaeda-Iraq Tie.” Times reporters Philip Shenon and Christopher Marquis reported that the staff statement “sharply contradicted one of President Bush’s central justifications for war.”
