I report, you decide

Well, no points for originality on that headline.

On B4B they've been complaining about the recent relevations from the 9/11 commission regarding Iraq and al Qaeda. Bill Hobbs writes:

A front-page headline in the New York Times read: "Panel finds no Qaeda-Iraq Tie." The Washington Post headline said: "Al Qaeda-Hussein Link is Dismissed." The CBS Evening News reported that the 9/11 Commission's report "directly contradicted one of President Bush's justifications for going to war against Iraq." ABC News said the report "unequivocally" disputed the administration's claims of links between Saddam and al Qaeda, while NBC said the Commission's report was "sharply at odds with what leading members of the administration continue to claim."

Lies. All lies.

...

For example, you don't have to believe what CBSCNNABCNBCMSNBC and the big papers like the NYT, WaPo and LA Times tall you about the 9/11 Commission's report. You can go on the Internet to the Commission's website and read the report for yourself. People who did know the major media lied. One more reason to trust the major media less, and your own eyes more.

First off, with a little thought he could have come up with ABCNNBCBSMSNBC, which is much shorter and has more of the effect he's looking for.

Enough of that. You know, I actually did go to the Commission's website. Here's what I found:

Bin Ladin also explored possible cooperation with Iraq during his time in Sudan, despite his opposition to Hussein's secular regime. Bin Ladin had in fact at one time support anti-Saddam Islamists in Iraqi Kurdistan. The Sudanese, to protect their own ties with Iraq, reportedly persuaded Bin Ladin to cease this support and arranged for contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda. A senior Iraqi intelligence officer reportedly made three vists to Sudan, finally meeting Bin Ladin in 1994. Bin Ladin is said to have requested space to establish training camps, as well as assistance in procuring weapons, but Iraq apparently never responded. There have been reports that contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda also occured after Bin Ladin had returned to Afghanistan, but they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship. Two senior bin Ladin associates have adamantly denied that any ties existed between al Qaeda and Iraq. We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States.

There's also this statement:

There is no convincing evidence that any government finacially supported al Qaeda before 9/11

So, how far off is the media?

UPDATE: Spinsanity:

In fact, the 9/11 Commission looked at whether Al Qaeda and Iraq had worked together as far back as the mid-1990s, as the White House implicitly acknowledged when it noted in the email that "The Commission's investigation does not dispute that contacts between Iraq and al-Qaeda occurred." For instance, some of the contacts cited in the 15th staff statement occurred in Sudan in 1994 (84K PDF), seven years before the September 11 attacks. And commission spokesman Al Felzenber told the Washington Post that "We found no evidence of joint operations or joint work or common operations between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's government, and that's beyond 9/11."