NY Times: War Changes Nothing

So, did anything significant change, for Saddam Hussein, between the decade plus leading up to early spring last year and the following summer? Apparently, the New York Times doesn't think so. Here's the news:

Saddam Hussein warned his Iraqi supporters to be wary of joining forces with foreign Arab fighters entering Iraq to battle American troops, according to a document found with the former Iraqi leader when he was captured, Bush administration officials said Tuesday.

The document appears to be a directive, written after he lost power, from Mr. Hussein to leaders of the Iraqi resistance, counseling caution against getting too close to Islamic jihadists and other foreign Arabs coming into occupied Iraq, according to American officials. ...

Officials said Mr. Hussein apparently believed that the foreign Arabs, eager for a holy war against the West, had a different agenda from the Baathists, who were eager for their own return to power in Baghdad. As a result, he wanted his supporters to be careful about becoming close allies with the jihadists, officials familiar with the document said.

One might reasonably assume that Hussein's tremendous loss of power and resources might have changed his thinking with respect to working with an international terrorist organization somewhat. Nobody ever suggested that ties between Saddam and Osama were anything other than individually self-serving. However, the paragraph that I cut out with the ellipsis suggests that the Times doesn't consider this changed perspective to have been much of a factor:

It provides a second piece of evidence challenging the Bush administration contention of close cooperation between Mr. Hussein's government and terrorists from Al Qaeda. C.I.A. interrogators have already elicited from the top Qaeda officials in custody that, before the American-led invasion, Osama bin Laden had rejected entreaties from some of his lieutenants to work jointly with Mr. Hussein.

No, it provides evidence that any cooperation between Iraq and al Qaeda was based not on their mutual well-being, but mutual dedication to our defeat. In fact, it sounds as if their alliance has taken about the same form that has been claimed, on a larger scale, for before the war: "Military and intelligence officials say they have detected cooperation at the tactical level, on individual attacks, but have less evidence of any coordination at a broader strategic level."

Does the Times require its writers to have or to seek to acquire any acumen at all when it comes to analysis of tactical matters? Or even just critical thinking? The overriding principle must be "Get Bush" if a news story about Hussein's advice to his followers not to work with Islamic jihadists too closely after the war prompts analysis that the President was wrong that the two groups had ties before it.

Of course, "contention of close cooperation" is a strawman — and vague, too — meaning that the Times is now on its third or fourth tier of flawed analysis.