Who said Muslims don't speak out against terrorists in their midst

Winning friends and influencing people is hard to do for the Taliban these days. This comes as no surprise to this observer, since I've already recounted dozens of cases where such a declaration has been made before. This is only the latest, and I'm sure won't be the last.

Another domino has fallen in the excuse for the war on terror. We know now that the US administration knew before it was elected getting rid of Saddam was its first priority, that according to the good folks at PNAC, but even all their excuses have been debunked and proven as lies, from WMDs to the link to al-Qaida to this last tidbit.

But curiously little has been heard about the allegedly foiled assassination plot in the five years since the U.S. military invaded Iraq. A just-released Pentagon study on the Iraqi regime's ties to terrorism only adds to the mystery. The review, conducted for the Pentagon's Joint Forces Command, combed through 600,000 pages of Iraqi intelligence documents seized after the fall of Baghdad, as well as thousands of hours of audio- and videotapes of Saddam's conversations with his ministers and top aides. The study found that the IIS kept remarkably detailed records of virtually every operation it planned, including plots to assassinate Iraqi exiles and to supply explosives and booby-trapped suitcases to Iraqi embassies. But the Pentagon researchers found no documents that referred to a plan to kill Bush. The absence was conspicuous because researchers, aware of its potential significance, were looking for such evidence. "It was surprising," said one source familiar with the preparation of the report (who under Pentagon ground rules was not permitted to speak on the record). Given how much the Iraqis did document, "you would have thought there would have been some veiled reference to something about [the plot].

Looking for evidence that can't be found. It's happened again and again since we invaded Iraq. There's nothing curious about the absence of this excuse on the national conscience as a reason for war. The planners knew it was as spurious as all the other dominoes that have fallen since 2003.