A wacky new theory about Saddam and 9/11. The archconservative Wall Street Journal editorial page today argues in two pieces -- a column by Laurie Mylroie and an unsigned editorial -- that there is ample evidence tying Saddam Hussein's regime with the terrorists of Al Qaeda. Mylroie goes so far as to say that 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed may have ties to Iraq, and may have even assumed the identity of someone killed in Kuwait during Iraq's brutal occupation 12 years ago.

This is hot stuff, obviously, but it smacks of sloppy piling-on. Ask yourself this: What is the one thing that George W. Bush could have done during the past year to win near-unanimous domestic support for a US invasion of Iraq? Answer: Show that Saddam had a direct (or even an indirect) link to the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Bush never did it, although that didn't stop him from simply asserting it on numerous occasions despite an utter lack of evidence. Yet now we are to believe that the wingnuts of the Journal -- not even the paper's first-rate news reporters, but its alternate-universe opinion-mongers -- have, at long last, got the goods.

Of course, in the unlikely event that the Journal is right, then US intelligence is obviously too incompetent to be allowed to handle sharp objects, never mind plan the invasion and occupation of Iraq.