Hayes, Limbaugh falsely cited 1998 bin Laden indictment as proof that Clinton administration had "connected" Iraq, Al Qaeda

On the December 9 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews, Weekly Standard staff writer Stephen F. Hayes cited the Department of Justice's 1998 indictment of Osama bin Laden on charges of conspiring to attack the United States as evidence that the Clinton administration had "connected Saddam [Hussein] and Al Qaeda." And on the December 9 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Rush Limbaugh also claimed that the indictment proved it was "Bill Clinton and his administration who first talked about firm evidence linking Saddam Hussein's regime to Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network." But Hayes's assertions were misleading at best, and Limbaugh's were false. While the original indictment did refer to an Iraq-Al Qaeda connection, several months after it was handed down, then-assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Patrick J. Fitzgerald specifically removed from a subsequent indictment of bin Laden -- which superseded the original indictment -- the reference to an Iraq-Al Qaeda link after failing to substantiate that such a relationship existed. This indictment charged bin Laden and numerous other Al Qaeda operatives with planning and carrying out the bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa.
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