Russert Fib: 'No One' Believes Iraq Link to 9/11

NBC News Washington bureau chief Tim Russert is claiming that "no one" believes Iraq played a role in the 9/11 attacks - a contention that should come as quite a surprise to Manhattan U.S. District Judge Harold Baer.

"No one will say there was a direct involvement of Saddam Hussein in Sept. 11," Russert told radio host Don Imus on Monday. "There's no direct link that can be substantiated."

Instead, said the "Meet the Press" host, the Bush White House is misleading the American public by insinuating that ties between Saddam Hussein and 9/11 exist. "It is in the president's interest for people to perceive Iraq as a central or vital part of the war on terror," he insisted.

In fact, when he claims that "no one" believes in an Iraq-9/11 link, it's Russert who's doing the misleading.

In a May 7 ruling on a lawsuit bought against Iraq by the families of 9/11 victims George Eric Smith and Timothy Soulas, Manhattan U.S. District Judge Harold Baer ruled there was proof Baghdad played a role in facilitating the attacks.

As the New York Law Journal reported a few days later, Baer wrote in his opinion that the testimony of witnesses like former CIA Director James Woolsey and terrorism expert Laurie Mylroie was "sufficient to meet plaintiffs' burden that Iraq collaborated in or supported bin Laden/al Qaeda's terrorist acts of September 11."

Key among the evidence introduced by Woolsey and Mylroie was the Baghdad terrorist camp Salman Pak, where radical Islamists were trained to hijack U.S. airliners using techniques employed on 9/11.

In his decision Baer wrote:

"Director Woolsey described the existence of a highly secure military facility in Iraq where non-Iraqi fundamentalists [e.g., Egyptians and Saudis] are trained in airplane hijacking and other forms of terrorism. Through satellite imagery and the testimony of three Iraqi defectors, plaintiffs demonstrated the existence of this facility, called Salman Pak, which has an airplane but no runway."

Judge Baer continued:

"The defectors also stated that these fundamentalists were taught methods of hijacking using utensils or short knives. Plaintiffs contend it is farfetched to believe that Iraqi agents trained fundamentalists in a top-secret facility for any purpose other than to promote terrorism."

While Judge Baer said the evidence of an Iraq-9/11 link was largely circumstantial and "just barely" met the required burden of proof, he awarded the claimants $104 million.

NBC News, along with most of the rest of the mainstream press, declined to cover Judge Baer's decision.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Media Bias

Editor's note:
Gerald Posner reveals how Bill Clinton could have prevented 9/11 - Click here for details!