emma_goldman
9th September 2006, 18:54
http://news. yahoo.com/ news?tmpl= story&cid= 514&u=/ap/ 20060908/ ap_on_go_ co/iraq_report_ 31
Senate: Saddam saw al-Qaida as threat
By JIM ABRAMS, Associated Press Writer
Fri Sep 8, 4:48 PM ET
Saddam Hussein regarded al-Qaida as a threat rather than a
possible ally, a Senate report says, contradicting
assertions President Bush has used to build support for the
war in Iraq. The report also newly faults intelligence
gathering in the lead-up to the 2003 invasion.
Released Friday, the report discloses for the first time an
October 2005 CIA assessment that prior to the war Saddam's
government "did not have a relationship, harbor or turn a
blind eye toward" al-Qaida operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi or
his associates.
As recently as an Aug. 21 news conference, Bush said people
should "imagine a world in which you had Saddam Hussein"
with the capacity to make weapons of mass destruction and
"who had relations with Zarqawi."
Democrats contended that the administration continues to use
faulty intelligence, including assertions of a link between
Saddam's government and the recently killed al-Zarqawi, to
justify the war in Iraq.
They also said, in remarks attached to Friday's Senate
Intelligence Committee document, that former CIA Director
George Tenet had modified his position on the terrorist link
at the request of administration policymakers.
Republicans said the document, which compares prewar
intelligence with post-invasion findings on Iraq's weapons
and on terrorist groups, broke little new ground. And they
said Democrats were distorting it for political purposes.
A previous report in 2004 made clear the intelligence
agencies' "massive failures," said Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., a
member of the committee. "Yet to make a giant leap in logic
to claim that the Bush administration intentionally misled
the nation or manipulated intelligence is simply not warranted."
White House press secretary Tony Snow said the report was
"nothing new."
A second part of the report concluded that false information
from the Iraqi National Congress, an anti-Saddam group led
by then-exile Ahmed Chalabi, was used to support key U.S.
intelligence assessments on Iraq.
It said U.S. intelligence agents put out numerous red flags
about the reliability of INC sources but the intelligence
community made a "serious error" and used one source who
concocted a story that Iraq was building mobile biological
weapons laboratories.
The report also said that in 2002 the National Security
Council directed that funding for the INC should continue
"despite warnings from both the CIA, which terminated its
relationship with the INC in December 1996, and the DIA
(Defense Intelligence Agency), that the INC was penetrated
by hostile intelligence services, including the Iranians."
According to the report, postwar findings indicate that
Saddam "was distrustful of al-Qaida and viewed Islamic
extremists as a threat to his regime."
It said al-Zarqawi was in Baghdad from May until late
November 2002. But "postwar information indicates that
Saddam Hussein attempted, unsuccessfully, to locate and
capture al-Zarqawi and that the regime did not have a
relationship with, harbor, or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi."
In June 2004, Bush defended Vice President Dick Cheney's
assertion that Saddam had "long-established ties" with
al-Qaida. "Zarqawi is the best evidence of connection to
al-Qaida affiliates and al-Qaida," the president said.
The report concludes that postwar findings do not support a
2002 intelligence report that Iraq was reconstituting its
nuclear program, possessed biological weapons or had ever
developed mobile facilities for producing biological warfare
agents.
"The report is a devastating indictment of the Bush-Cheney
administration' s unrelenting, misleading and deceptive
attempts to convince the American people that Saddam Hussein
was linked with al-Qaida," said Sen. Carl Levin (news, bio,
voting record), D-Mich., a member of the committee.
Levin and Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, the top
Democrat on the panel, said Tenet told the committee last
July that in 2002 he had complied with an administration
request "to say something about not being inconsistent with
what the president had said" about the Saddam-terrorist link.
They said that on Oct. 7, 2002, the same day Bush gave a
speech speaking of such a link, the CIA had sent a
declassified letter to the committee saying it would be an
"extreme step" for Saddam to assist Islamist terrorists in
attacking the United States.
They said Tenet acknowledged to the committee that
subsequently issuing a statement that there was no
inconsistency between the president's speech and the CIA
viewpoint was "the wrong thing to do."
Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said the mistakes of
prewar intelligence have long been known and "the additional
views of the committee's Democrats are little more than a
rehashing of the same unfounded allegations they've used for
over three years."
The panel report is Phase II of an analysis of prewar
intelligence on Iraq. The first phase, issued in July 2004,
focused on the CIA's failings in its estimates of Iraq's
weapons program.
The second phase had been delayed as Republicans and
Democrats fought over what information should be
declassified and how far the committee should delve into the
question of whether policymakers may have manipulated
intelligence to make the case for war.
Committee member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said he planned to ask
for an investigation into the amount of information
remaining classified. He said, "I am particularly concerned
it appears that information may have been classified to
shield individuals from accountability. "
Senate: Saddam saw al-Qaida as threat
By JIM ABRAMS, Associated Press Writer
Fri Sep 8, 4:48 PM ET
Saddam Hussein regarded al-Qaida as a threat rather than a
possible ally, a Senate report says, contradicting
assertions President Bush has used to build support for the
war in Iraq. The report also newly faults intelligence
gathering in the lead-up to the 2003 invasion.
Released Friday, the report discloses for the first time an
October 2005 CIA assessment that prior to the war Saddam's
government "did not have a relationship, harbor or turn a
blind eye toward" al-Qaida operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi or
his associates.
As recently as an Aug. 21 news conference, Bush said people
should "imagine a world in which you had Saddam Hussein"
with the capacity to make weapons of mass destruction and
"who had relations with Zarqawi."
Democrats contended that the administration continues to use
faulty intelligence, including assertions of a link between
Saddam's government and the recently killed al-Zarqawi, to
justify the war in Iraq.
They also said, in remarks attached to Friday's Senate
Intelligence Committee document, that former CIA Director
George Tenet had modified his position on the terrorist link
at the request of administration policymakers.
Republicans said the document, which compares prewar
intelligence with post-invasion findings on Iraq's weapons
and on terrorist groups, broke little new ground. And they
said Democrats were distorting it for political purposes.
A previous report in 2004 made clear the intelligence
agencies' "massive failures," said Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., a
member of the committee. "Yet to make a giant leap in logic
to claim that the Bush administration intentionally misled
the nation or manipulated intelligence is simply not warranted."
White House press secretary Tony Snow said the report was
"nothing new."
A second part of the report concluded that false information
from the Iraqi National Congress, an anti-Saddam group led
by then-exile Ahmed Chalabi, was used to support key U.S.
intelligence assessments on Iraq.
It said U.S. intelligence agents put out numerous red flags
about the reliability of INC sources but the intelligence
community made a "serious error" and used one source who
concocted a story that Iraq was building mobile biological
weapons laboratories.
The report also said that in 2002 the National Security
Council directed that funding for the INC should continue
"despite warnings from both the CIA, which terminated its
relationship with the INC in December 1996, and the DIA
(Defense Intelligence Agency), that the INC was penetrated
by hostile intelligence services, including the Iranians."
According to the report, postwar findings indicate that
Saddam "was distrustful of al-Qaida and viewed Islamic
extremists as a threat to his regime."
It said al-Zarqawi was in Baghdad from May until late
November 2002. But "postwar information indicates that
Saddam Hussein attempted, unsuccessfully, to locate and
capture al-Zarqawi and that the regime did not have a
relationship with, harbor, or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi."
In June 2004, Bush defended Vice President Dick Cheney's
assertion that Saddam had "long-established ties" with
al-Qaida. "Zarqawi is the best evidence of connection to
al-Qaida affiliates and al-Qaida," the president said.
The report concludes that postwar findings do not support a
2002 intelligence report that Iraq was reconstituting its
nuclear program, possessed biological weapons or had ever
developed mobile facilities for producing biological warfare
agents.
"The report is a devastating indictment of the Bush-Cheney
administration' s unrelenting, misleading and deceptive
attempts to convince the American people that Saddam Hussein
was linked with al-Qaida," said Sen. Carl Levin (news, bio,
voting record), D-Mich., a member of the committee.
Levin and Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, the top
Democrat on the panel, said Tenet told the committee last
July that in 2002 he had complied with an administration
request "to say something about not being inconsistent with
what the president had said" about the Saddam-terrorist link.
They said that on Oct. 7, 2002, the same day Bush gave a
speech speaking of such a link, the CIA had sent a
declassified letter to the committee saying it would be an
"extreme step" for Saddam to assist Islamist terrorists in
attacking the United States.
They said Tenet acknowledged to the committee that
subsequently issuing a statement that there was no
inconsistency between the president's speech and the CIA
viewpoint was "the wrong thing to do."
Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said the mistakes of
prewar intelligence have long been known and "the additional
views of the committee's Democrats are little more than a
rehashing of the same unfounded allegations they've used for
over three years."
The panel report is Phase II of an analysis of prewar
intelligence on Iraq. The first phase, issued in July 2004,
focused on the CIA's failings in its estimates of Iraq's
weapons program.
The second phase had been delayed as Republicans and
Democrats fought over what information should be
declassified and how far the committee should delve into the
question of whether policymakers may have manipulated
intelligence to make the case for war.
Committee member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said he planned to ask
for an investigation into the amount of information
remaining classified. He said, "I am particularly concerned
it appears that information may have been classified to
shield individuals from accountability. "