Iraqgate: More lies still undiscussed (Al-Quaeda-911-Iraq ties)

posted by ewing2001 on Saturday July 12, @06:56AM

AP -Sat, Jul 12, 2003

Ex-Officials Dispute Iraq Tie to al-Qaida

Photo: Greg Thielmann

As President Bush works to quiet a controversy over his discredited claim of Iraqi uranium shopping in Africa, another of his prewar assertions is coming under fire: the alleged link between Saddam Hussein's regime and al-Qaida.

Before the war, Bush and members of his cabinet said Saddam was harboring top al-Qaida operatives and suggested Iraq could slip the terrorist network chemical, biological or even nuclear weapons. Now, two former Bush administration intelligence officials say the evidence linking Saddam to the group responsible for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks was never more than sketchy at best.

"There was no significant pattern of cooperation between Iraq and the al-Qaida terrorist operation," former State Department intelligence official Greg Thielmann said this week.

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Intelligence agencies agreed on the "lack of a meaningful connection to al-Qaida" and said so to the White House and Congress, said Thielmann, who left State's Bureau of Intelligence and Research last September.

Another former Bush administration intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, agreed there was no clear link between Saddam and al-Qaida.

Bush Overstated Iraq Links to Al-Qaida, Former Intelligence Officials Say

AP Breaking - Jul 12, 2003

"... U.S. officials say a handful of suspected al-Qaida members have been captured in Iraq, but most are probably low-level operatives. The biggest catch was a man described as a midlevel terrorist operative who worked for Zarqawi, who was nabbed in April near Baghdad.

Vince Cannistraro, a former CIA counterterrorism chief, said last week it's still unclear how much support Zarqawi and his followers got from Saddam.

"That he (Saddam) was promoting al-Qaida is absurd," Cannistraro said...

High-level captives from both al-Qaida and Saddam's regime also have denied any links between the two, U.S. officials say. They say al-Qaida leaders Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Abu Zubayda denied their network worked with the former Iraqi government..."

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