Writing in today's Times on what he calls "The Zelikow Report," Safire takes aim at the newly issued staff report that dismissed out of hand any real connection between Iraq and al-Qaida, which led to a media broadside claiming it was a conclusion of the Commission itself, which it was not.

"'Panel Finds No Qaida-Iraq Tie' went the Times headline," Safire wrote. "'Al Qaida-Hussein Link Is Dismissed' front-paged The Washington Post. The A.P. led with the thrilling words 'Bluntly contradicting the Bush Administration, the commission. ... ' This understandably caused my editorial-page colleagues to draw the conclusion that 'there was never any evidence of a link between Iraq and al Qaida. ...'"

Thrilling but untrue, the columnist notes. It was not the judgment of the commissioners, but merely an assertion of the "runaway" staff headed by ex-N.S.C. [National Security Council] aide Philip Zelikow. "After Vice President Dick Cheney's outraged objection, the staff's sweeping conclusion was soon disavowed by both commission chairman Tom Kean and vice chairman Lee Hamilton," Safire reported.

"'Were there contacts between Al Qaida and Iraq?' Kean asked himself. 'Yes ... no question.' Hamilton joined in: 'The vice president is saying, I think, that there were connections ... we don't disagree with that' — just 'no credible evidence' of Iraqi cooperation in the 9/11 attack.'"

Cheney should not blame the Commission or, for that matter, the media, Safire says. Instead, "blame the commission's leaders for ducking responsibility for its interim findings. Kean and Hamilton have allowed themselves to be jerked around by a manipulative staff.

"Yesterday, Governor Kean passed along this stunner about 'no collaborative relationship' to ABC's George Stephanopoulos: 'Members do not get involved in staff reports.'"

Another Commission member told Safire he did not see the Zelikow bombshell until the night before it was released. Moreover, he writes, the White House let the misleading language get by without objecting to what Safire called "a Democratic bonanza in the tricky paragraph leading to the misleading 'no Qaida-Iraq tie.'"

John Kerry, for example, jumped on the The Zelikow Report because it confused the distinction "between evidence of decade-long dealings between agents of Saddam and bin Laden (which panel members know to be true) and evidence of Iraqi cooperation in the 9/11 attacks.

Safire explained that the staff "had twisted the two strands together to cast doubt on both the Qaida-Iraq ties and the specific attacks of 9/11: 'There have been reports that contacts between Iraq and al Qaida also occurred after bin Laden had returned to Afghanistan, but they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship.'"

The staff, he wrote, dismissed the reports, citing the denials of al-Qaida agents and what they decided was "no credible evidence" of cooperation on 9/11.

It was that paragraph, extending doubt on 9/11 to doubt on all previous contacts, that put the story on front pages. "Here was a release on the official commission's letterhead not merely failing to find Saddam's hand in 9/11, which Bush does not claim.

"The news was in the apparent contradiction of what the president repeatedly asserted as a powerful reason for war: that Iraq had long been dangerously in cahoots with terrorists."

Safire suggests that the Commission can regain credibility by: