Something is wierd about those numbers. Anyone know why the precentages add up to more than 100? Yes I am a geek...

The poll probably allows for more than one choice.

See s5's response. They're not two answers to the one question (in which case the %s should sum). They are separate propositions.

NPR wins again!

Are you fucking kidding me!? Your telling me a government who told al-queda "if you come hee i give you safe refuge" had no ties to those sons of bitches! BULL FUCKING SHIT! Die you fucking 9-11 commision old bastards. get your heads outa your asses.

this outrages me... do the history on iraq and al-queda

Yeah. Guess Sarin and a bunch of missle parts just don't count.

What's next, a congressional commission on whether the CIA killed Kennedy? Now that would be some interesting polling data.

why don't you 'do' your history (?) and cite the source of this information of yours.

something tells me that your actual methodology is more along the lines of, oh, they're both brown and they're both from that part of the world, so of course they are bedfellows

Sadly though, as some of the comments here testify to, belief can be stronger than facts. Thanks for posting this info s5.

Actually that's a bit backwards from the findings. Al-Qaida sought help from Iraq, but were refused by, well presumably Saddam. Which sort of makes sense I guess. While he tried to recast himself (and the country) to get Islamist sympathies, he was a secular ruler, and really not the sort of government that mixes really well with your fundie terrorist types.

I'm sure self-preservation was also a motive in the rebuffing of al-Qaida. If the U.S. hears about it, he's got trouble. If al-Qaida is in-country not only do they pose a threat to the stability of Saddam's regime, they also get the U.S. out with the big guns (much earlier).

I don't recall Bush ever declaring any connections between Saddam and al-Qaeda as a justification for war.

[Edited on Jun 16, 2004 by stockula]

He didn't. But that's not how the Anti-Bush smear machine works.

The trick is to claim that Bush said something he never did, then disprove the "claim" and call him a liar.

Remember that whole thing about Bush supposedly saying that Saddam & WMDs were an "imminent" threat?

Complete baloney from start to finish. Bush even said, in a SOTU address, that the whole point was NOT to wait until the threat was imminent, because it would be too late. He closed with the memorable line, "Trusting Saddam Hussein is not an option."

Fairly straightforward, no? Yet somehow, through some kind of journalistic alchemy, Bush's statement became "Saddam poses an imminent threat - we must strike!"

[Edited on Jun 17, 2004 12:07AM]

Ummm, yeah, I'm real sure Jamie Gorelick got it wrong and you know the real scoop.

Covered that whole middle east policy real thoroughly in film and video school, did they?

there goes that damn liberal media misleading the public again