Power Line has an important post on the Telegraph story regarding the training of Mohammed Atta by the Iraqi Intelligence Service, and why the story is not getting any attention from major US media outlets. In order to understand why the Washington Post, for example, does not appear anxious to look into this claim, Hindrocket notes the following exchange during an on-line chat this morning:
Annapolis, Md.: Will the Post be looking into the story reported by the Telegraph about connections between Abu Nidal, Mohammad Atta and Saddam Hussein? Very likely to be untrue, but would be immensely significant if true. And there’s no mention on the Post’s Web site about it yet.
Robert G. Kaiser: If we put every rumor and story in the British press (not to mention many others around the world) on the Web site, you’d be dizzy–and no wiser. The Post does not print other papers’ uncheckable ‘exclusive’ stories. And I can tell you that there have been dozens of bad–that is, wrong–ones over recent months. The Telegraph, Daily and Sunday, has not earned our respect for accuracy or careful reporting.
Read the entire post and remember that the Washington Post has actually been rather moderate in its stance on the war in Iraq. And if they’re moderate, then you can imagine that the Star-Tribune-type hard-left broadsheets won’t lift a finger to inform their readership of this development.