"Case Closed" for the neocons

Pro-warriors are hyperventilating over a memo from Douglas Feith, coordinator of the infamous Office of Special Plans, to the Senate Intelligence Committee that is investigating how the Bush administration handled the intelligence on Iraq prior to war. Dated October 27, 2003, the document purports to detail cooperation between Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden dating back to the early 1990s.

The memo was leaked to the Weekly Standard, the flagship neoconservative publication run by PNAC head Bill Kristol. Stephen Hayes, a staff writer at the magazine who has been pushing the Iraq-Al Qaeda link for some time, has written up an article about the memo in this week's edition of the magazine.

Update: The Pentagon has labelled Feith's memo "inaccurate" in a press release that was issued today. The DOD statement also indicates that the intelligence cited by Feith did not deal with "the substantive issue of the relationship between Iraq and al Qaida, and it drew no conclusions."

Update II: Hayes responds to the Pentagon memo, while Slate's Jack Shafer wonders why the non Murdoch-owned press is avoiding Hayes' scoop. Josh Marshall, on the other hand, says the memo consists of nothing new - "just an effort by the usual suspects at the Pentagon to push the already-discredited al Qaeda link because so much else that they’ve been involved with has gone so badly."

Update III: Jim Lobe and Newsweek's team of Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball also weigh in with skeptical takes on the memo.