IN THE POLITICIZED DEBATE over the former Iraqi regime's relationship with al Qaeda, no politician has been a more vocal naysayer than Senator Carl Levin. For almost two years the Democratic senator from Michigan has attempted to discredit the notion that the two could have worked together in any way. In so doing he has been willing to advance almost any argument, even if it is at odds with his earlier lines of reasoning.

His modus operandi has been to quote a Bush administration official (usually out of context) and then juxtapose these comments with other evidence (usually mischaracterized) derived from the intelligence community. At the heart of Levin's crusade to discredit Bush administration policymakers has been the charge that those officials "cherry-picked" intelligence--citing only intelligence that supported their views and discarding the rest. But nowhere is there a better example of cherry-picking than Levin's own press release from Friday, April 15.

Headlined "Levin Releases Newly Declassified Intelligence Documents on Iraq-al Qaeda Relationship: Documents show Administration claims were exaggerated, " the release fails to deliver the goods.

In all, the newly released documents total eight (mostly redacted) pages. Meaning that out of a total catalogue of--according to former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer--"roughly 19,000 documents, probably totaling 50,000 to 60,000 pages" Senator Levin managed to declassify only a handful of excerpts from three summary documents.

Levin attempts to use these excerpts to question President Bush's veracity and to challenge his October 7, 2002 remark that "Iraq has trained al Qaeda

In reality, however, the president's assessment was in line with what the U.S. intelligence community was arguing and the newly declassified excerpts do not show otherwise.

For example, George Tenet, then director of Central Intelligence--a man with access to far more intelligence reporting than that contained in Levin's excerpts--offered nearly the same assessment as Bush on the same day in a letter to Senator Graham.

"We have credible reporting that al Qa'ida leaders sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire WMD capabilities," Tenet wrote, "the reporting also stated that Iraq has provided training to al Qa'ida members in the areas of poisons and gases and making conventional bombs."

Tenet offered the Senate Intelligence Committee this more expansive account on February 11, 2003:

Iraq has in the past provided training in document forgery and bomb making to al Qa'ida. It also provided training in poisons and gasses to two al Qa'ida associates; one of these associates characterized the relationship as successful. Mr. Chairman, this information is based on a solid foundation of intelligence. It comes to us from credible and reliable sources. Much of it is corroborated by multiple sources.

That is, the head of the intelligence community was offering the same assessment as the president even five months after the fact.

The excerpts released by Levin do not appear to directly address the evidence cited by Tenet. In fact, the only picture the excerpts paint is of an intelligence community trying to interpret (with mixed results) a wealth of reporting on a relationship that supposedly did not exist.