McCLATCHY THE MEME-KILLER

McClatchy, like the AP, isn't falling for the new agit-prop meme from the White House.

No evidence ties al Qaida to recent bombing of a Shiite shrine
By Nancy A. Youssef McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Fri, June 29, 2007

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday that the U.S. has no "hard evidence" that the Sunni Muslim insurgent group al Qaida in Iraq was responsible for the recent bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra, although Bush administration officials cite the attack as proof that al Qaida in Iraq is stoking sectarian violence.

His comments come as the Bush administration has renewed its focus on Iraqi insurgents who claim to be affiliated with al Qaida. In a speech Thursday, President Bush called al Qaida the biggest threat in Iraq and said that al Qaida in Iraq was the same group that was responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. U.S. military spokesmen in Iraq also have begun citing al Qaida in Iraq more often after years of downplaying its importance.

U.S. intelligence and military officials say the ties between al Qaida in Iraq and Osama bin Laden are murky, at best, and they believe that al Qaida in Iraq is only a fraction of the problem there.

UPDATE:

McClatchy is more forthright about this than I imagined:

Bush plays al Qaida card to bolster support for Iraq policy
By Jonathan S. Landay McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Thu, June 28, 2007

WASHINGTON — Facing eroding support for his Iraq policy, even among Republicans, President Bush on Thursday called al Qaida "the main enemy" in Iraq, an assertion rejected by his administration's senior intelligence analysts.

The reference, in a major speech at the Naval War College that referred to al Qaida at least 27 times, seemed calculated to use lingering outrage over the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to bolster support for the current buildup of U.S. troops in Iraq, despite evidence that sending more troops hasn't reduced the violence or sped Iraqi government action on key issues.

U.S. military and intelligence officials, however, say that Iraqis with ties to al Qaida are only a small fraction of the threat to American troops. The group known as al Qaida in Iraq didn't exist before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, didn't pledge its loyalty to al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden until October 2004 and isn't controlled by bin Laden or his top aides.

Bush's use of al Qaida in his speech had strong echoes of the strategy the administration had used to whip up public support for the Iraq invasion by accusing the late Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein of cooperating with bin Laden and implying that he'd played a role in the Sept. 11 attacks. Administration officials have since acknowledged that Saddam had no ties to bin Laden or 9-11.

A similar pattern has developed in Iraq, where the U.S. military has cited al Qaida 33 times in a barrage of news releases in the last seven days, and some news organizations have echoed the drumbeat. Last month, al Qaida was mentioned only nine times in U.S. military news releases.

In his speech, Bush made other questionable assertions.

He claimed that U.S. troops were fighting "block by block" in Baqouba, a city northeast of Baghdad, as part of an offensive to clear out al Qaida fighters.

But Gen. Raymond Odierno, the U.S. ground commander in Iraq, said earlier this month that 80 percent of the insurgents American troops expected to encounter in Baqouba had fled before the operation began, including much of the insurgent leadership.

There was little heavy fighting. Out of 10,000 U.S. troops involved, only one has been killed.