Just how much of an inane waste of space?

Updated How much? This much.

Washington (Knight-Ridder, October 4) - A new CIA assessment undercuts the White House's claim that Saddam Hussein maintained ties to al-Qaida, saying there's no conclusive evidence that the regime harbored Osama bin Laden associate Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. ...

Since the Sept. 11 commission's judgment in June, Bush and Cheney have repeatedly said that al-Zarqawi was an associate of bin Laden and received safe haven from Saddam. But Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld backed away Monday from such claims, apparently as a result of the new CIA assessment. ...

"To my knowledge, I have not seen any strong, hard evidence that links the two," Rumsfeld said during an appearance at the Council on Foreign Relations, a Washington research center.

In September 2002, before the war, Rumsfeld had said the U.S. intelligence community had "bulletproof" evidence of such links.

The report apparently finds no firm basis to believe Saddam had provided "aid, comfort [or] succor" to al-Zarqawi and even raises questions about the assertion he was treated in a Baghdad hospital in 2002.

"The evidence is that Saddam never gave Zarqawi anything," another U.S. official said.

And all of this without even getting to the fact that Zarqawi is not an "associate" of bin Laden at all but in many ways a rival and who has his own independent organization.

All in all, pretty inane.

Updated Rumsfeld released a statement on Tuesday saying that

his response to the question at the Council on Foreign Relations "regarding ties between al-Qaida and Iraq regrettably was misunderstood."

"I have acknowledged since September 2002 that there were ties between al-Qaida and Iraq," Rumsfeld said.

Yes, and we have always been at war with Eurasia.