AP's nonsensical death toll comparison

It's silly, but I can't resist commenting on the AP's effort to compare troop deaths in Iraq to civilian deaths on 9/11:

The U.S. military on Tuesday announced the deaths of six more American soldiers, pushing the U.S. military death toll since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003 to at least 2,978 — five more than the number killed in the Sept. 11 attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

Glorifying this factoid is perhaps the clearest indication yet of media bias. Most on the anti-war side continue to live by the "Saddam had no connection to 9/11" mantra, a mindset that leaves the Butcher a harmless caricature, perhaps even a victim of the Bushitler oil-war machine. The AP story fails to disappoint in that arena. To wit:

There has been no direct evidence of links between Saddam's regime and the Sept. 11 attacks. Democratic leaders have said the Bush administration has gotten the U.S. bogged down in Iraq, detracting from efforts against al-Qaida and other terrorist groups.

There have, of course, been links between Saddam Hussein and terrorism, which are continually ignored. But aside from Hussein, the war was labeled the "Global War on Terrorism" not the "Global War on al Qaeda" for good reasons, Hizballah, Hamas, and the FARC to name a few.