Originally published by Yahoo News on Sat Apr 16 [here]
WASHINGTON (AFP) - A top Democratic senator released formerly
classified documents that he said undercut top US officials' pre-Iraq
war claims of a link between Saddam Hussein's regime and the Al-Qaeda
terror network.
"These documents are additional compelling evidence that the
Intelligence Community did not believe there was a cooperative
relationship between Iraq and Al-Qaeda, despite public comments by the
highest ranking officials in our government to the contrary," said
Senator Carl Levin.
The declassified documents undermine President George W. Bush's
administration claims regarding Iraq's involvement in training Al-Qaeda
operatives and the likelihood of a meeting between September 11, 2001,
hijacker Mohammed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in
April 2001, Levin said in a statement.
In October 2002 Bush said: "We've learned that Iraq has trained
al-Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gasses."
But a June 2002 CIA report, titled "Iraq and al-Qa'ida:
Interpreting a Murky Relationship," said "the level and extent of this
is assistance is not clear.
The report added that there were "many critical gaps" in the
knowledge of Iraq-Al-Qaeda links due to "limited reporting" and the
"questionable reliability of many of our sources," according to
excerpts cited by Levin.
The October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's weapons
programs said much of the information on Iraqi training and support for
Al-Qaeda was "second-hand" or from sources of "varying reliability."
And a January 2003 CIA report indicates some of the reports of
training were based on "hearsay" while others were "were "simple
declarative accusations of Iraqi-Al-Qaeda complicity with no
substantiating detail or other information that might help us
corroborate them."
In December 2001, Vice President Dick Cheney said Atta's meeting
with an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague was "pretty well
confirmed."
But, according to Levin, a June 2002 CIA report says: "Reporting
is contradictory on hijacker Mohammed Atta's alleged trip to Prague and
meeting with an Iraqi intelligence officer, and we have not verified
his travels."
And a January 2003 CIA report says "the most reliable reporting to date casts doubt on this possibility."
Levin requested the documents' declassification in April 2004 as
part of his minority inquiry within the Senate Armed Services Committee
into Iraq intelligence failures.