They're admitting Al Qaeda is propaganda.

The WSJ blog Washington Wire truthsquadded some of the Bush press conference today, challenging the claims about Al Qaeda. But buried in there is an admission of "the big lie."

The president spoke of the group as the main driver of violence in Iraq, even though U.S. commanders say Shiite groups — which have ethnically cleansed entire regions of Iraq of most Sunni inhabitants — have been responsible for more of the country’s bloodshed in recent months. Bush’s comments were also at variance with the interim report itself, which acknowledged that al Qaeda in Iraq “may not account for most of the violence of Iraq.”....

Still, expect to hear more about al Qaeda — both the main organization led by bin Laden and the largely-unconnected Iraq franchise — in the weeks ahead.

With support for the war evaporating at home and on Capitol Hill, administration officials say they plan to play up al-Qaeda in Iraq even further in their public comments about the war there. “It’s a name that really resonates, like the boogeyman,” said one aide.

They're lying. They admit to reporters off the record they're lying, and yet that's not a big story.

Later: (AP) "Al-Qaida works to plant U.S. operatives"

(NYTimes) "Bush Distorts Qaeda Links, Critics Assert"

(ThinkProgress) Tony Snow on FoxNews says an Iraq withdrawal would bring terrorism "to our shores, to a shopping mall near you."