The Memo:

You will by now have seen this story on a memo offering evidence of a Qaeda-Iraq link. It is worth noting that the Department of Defense has issued a statement about it. The statement is charmingly verbose. The short form of it is this: "The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence asked us a question: 'What sources and reports tend to suggest a link between al Qaeda and Saddam's Iraq?' This memo was our reply. It was not a conclusion that such links existed, just a compilation of reports that suggested it, most of which were raw data. As the question was 'what suggests a link?', data which suggested otherwise was not included."

I haven't seen most of this stuff before, and I don't know what conclusions were drawn about any particular report. Still, it's worth noting that this memo only opens new questions, it doesn't close the case.

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