In . {Link without Title} {Link without Title} {Link without Title} {Link without Title} {Link without Title}
Critics of the Bush Administration have made serious charges against the U.S. government, including the claim Bush was intentionally building a case for war with Iraq without regard to the facts. This claim was also discussed again after May 1 , 2005 , when the '' Sunday Times '' (a British Broadsheet newspaper) published the Downing Street Memo which features the remark attributed to Richard Dearlove (then head of British foreign intelligence service MI-6 ) that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy" of removing Saddam Hussein from power, which was taken by critics to show that U.S. intelligence on Iraq prior to the war was deliberately falsified, rather than simply mistaken. The support of the American public and by extension, authorization of the Congress was needed to Invade Iraq . Prior to 9/11 and the resulting War On Terror , some believed that Saddam Hussein's regime had links to al-Qaeda. Reports of contacts and cooperation between the two were published in various newspapers, magazines and televised news reports, {Link without Title} but no concrete evidence that Iraq conspired with al-Qaeda to commit terrorist attacks has ever materialized.
The , DIA , FBI , and NSA . The Senate Report Of Pre-war Intelligence On Iraq also reviewed the intelligence community's conclusions and found that they were justifiable.
In addition, Bush received on presented facts and opinion regarding the " War On Terror ." {Link without Title} {Link without Title} {Link without Title}
The U.S. government is currently releasing documents, called the ', the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has already looked at the documents and warned that "amateur translators won’t find any major surprises, such as proof Hussein hid stockpiles of chemical weapons." Intelligence expert Steven Aftergood suggested that many are using the release of these documents as an opportunity to find "a retrospective justification for the war in Iraq." [http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/la-na-ushussein17mar17,1,2360853.story]
On , 2003 . {Link without Title}
When Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990 , Osama bin Laden offered to defend Saudi Arabia by sending " Jihadist " warriors from Afghanistan to repel Saddam's forces. After the Gulf War , bin Laden continued to criticize Saddam's Ba'ath regime, emphasizing that Saddam could not be trusted, and at one point calling him a "socialist motherfucker." Bin Laden told his biographer that "the land of the Arab world, the land is like a mother, and Saddam Hussein is fucking his mother." {Link without Title}
Additionally, bin Laden supported anti-Saddam terrorist forces in northern Iraq, although in later years there are indications that Saddam eventually tolerated their presence as a counterweight to the Kurds.9/11 Commission, p. 61 Those forces, however, mostly operated in areas not under Saddam's control (see below).
Osama bin Laden's expressed hostility to Saddam's regime, critical assessment of evidence from the Iraqi National Congress (the source of most of the claims of cooperation between the two) as well as the paucity of evidence for the alleged links, particularly for any substantial collaboration, have led most journalists and intelligence analysts not associated with or supporters of the Bush administration to dismiss the claimed links.
, Bruce Hoffman , Jason Burke , and Daniel Benjamin has been that there is no evidence that suggests any collaborative relationship between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. That was also the conclusion of specific investigations by the National Security Council , the Central Intelligence Agency , the Federal Bureau Of Investigation and the 9/11 Commission, among others. The Senate Select Committee On Intelligence reviewed the CIA's investigation and concluded that the CIA's conclusion that there was no evidence of collaboration was justified.
While it is doubtful that Saddam was involved in September 11, members of his government did have contacts with al-Qaeda over the years; however, many of the links, as will be seen below, are not considered by experts and analysts as convincing evidence of a collaborative relationship. Former Counterterrorism Czar Richard A. Clarke writes, " simple fact is that lots of people, particularly in the Middle East, pass along many rumors and they end up being recorded and filed by U.S. intelligence agencies in raw reports. That does not make them 'intelligence'. Intelligence involves analysis of raw reports, not merely their enumeration or weighing them by the pound. Analysis, in turn, involves finding independent means of corroborating the reports. Did al-Qaeda agents ever talk to Iraqi agents? I would be startled if they had not. I would also be startled if American, Israeli, Iranian, British, or Jordanian agents had somehow failed to talk to al-Qaeda or Iraqi agents. Talking to each other is what intelligence agents do, often under assumed identities or 'false flags,' looking for information or possible defectors." '' Against All Enemies '', p. 269-70 Larry Wilkerson , former Chief of Staff to Secretary Of State Colin Powell , told Voice Of America that "Saddam Hussein had his agenda and al-Qaida had its agenda, and those two agendas were incompatible. And so if there was any contact between them, it was a contact that was rebuffed rather than a contact that led to meaningful relationships between them."[http://www.voanews.com/english/NewsAnalysis/2006-04-19-voa60.cfm
After the Gulf War, as Iraq experienced internal unrest, Saddam turned to religion perhaps to bolster his government (for example, adding the words " God Is Great " in Arabic to the Flag , and referring to God in his speeches).
Some sources allege that several meetings between top Iraqi operatives and bin Laden took place, but these claims have been disputed by many other sources, including most of the original intelligence agencies that investigated these sources in the first place. Many in the intelligence community are skeptical about whether such meetings, if they took place at all, ever resulted in any meaningful relationship. Many of the claims of actual collaboration seem to have originated with people associated with the Iraqi National Congress whose credibility has been impeached and who has been accused of manipulating the evidence in order to lure the United States into war on false pretenses. In addition, many of the raw intelligence reports came to the awareness of the public through the leaking of a memo sent from Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence "the Feith memo", dated October 27 2003 , the conclusions of which have been disputed by intelligence agencies including the CIA.
Some have suggested that an understanding was reached between Iraq and al-Qaeda, namely that al-Qaeda would not act against Saddam in exchange for Iraqi support, primarily in the form of training. Some reports claim that six of the 9/11 Hijackers , including their leader Mohamed Atta Al-Sayed , met with Iraqi intelligence operatives on several separate occasions, but the evidence that any of these meetings actually took place is sketchy. A training camp in Salman Pak , south of Baghdad, was claimed by a number of defectors to have been used to train international terrorists (assumed to be al-Qaeda members) in hijacking techniques using a real airplane as a prop. The defectors were inconsistent about a number of details. The camp has been discovered by U.S. Marines, but intelligence analysts do not believe it was used by al-Qaeda. Some believe it was actually used for counterterrorism training, while others believe it was used to train foreign terrorists but not al-Qaeda members.
Robert S. Leiken noted that a lot of the claims connecting Saddam and al-Qaeda — and specifically Saddam and the 9/11 attacks — were based on the controversial theories of Laurie Mylroie which had been thoroughly vetted and dismissed by the CIA and FBI. He notes in ''Frontpage Magazine'', "she also believes Saddam perpetrated 9-11 in spite of the fact that the joint FBI-INS-police PENTBOM investigation, the FBI program of voluntary interviews and numerous other post-9-11 inquiries, together comprising probably the most comprehensive criminal investigation in history—chasing down 500,000 leads and interviewing 175,000 people -- has turned up no evidence of Iraq's involvement; nor has the extensive search of post-Saddam Iraq by the Kay and Duelfer commission and US troops combing through Saddam’s computers." {Link without Title}
''For discussion of links between Iraq and other terrorist organizations, see 2003 Invasion Of Iraq ''.
Much of the evidence of alleged links between Iraq and al-Qaeda is based on speculation about meetings that may have taken place between Iraqi officials and al-Qaeda members. What took place at those meetings is unclear, but often the mere act of meeting has been taken as evidence of substantial collaboration. As terrorism analyst Evan Kohlman points out, "While there have been a number of promising intelligence leads hinting at possible meetings between al-Qaeda members and elements of the former Baghdad regime, nothing has been yet shown demonstrating that these potential contacts were historically any more significant than the same level of communication maintained between Osama bin Laden and ruling elements in a number of Iraq's Persian Gulf neighbors, including Saudi Arabia, Iran, Yemen, Qatar, and Kuwait." {Link without Title}
The following timeline lists allegations of meetings between al Qaeda members and members of Saddam Hussein's government, as well as other information relevant to the theory that Saddam conspired with al-Qaeda. It is important to note that not all of the specific claims about meetings can be substantiated with other evidence, and that many of the intelligence agencies and experts who have analyzed the evidence have concluded that no substantial links exist.
- Osama bin Laden lectures in Pakistan, according to sworn testimony of al-Qaeda member Mohamed Rashed Daoud Al-'Owhali . During these lectures, bin Laden warns against Saddam Hussein and the Baath party, telling listeners to beware of the expansionist ambitions of the secular leader. {Link without Title}
- became, for bin Laden, a key piece of evidence that the U.S. was at war with Islam. While bin Laden continued to oppose Saddam's Baathist government, he was vocal in criticizing the U.N. sanctions against Iraq and in making common cause with the Iraqi people.
- February 19: Sudan. A handwritten note that was released by the U.S. government in 2006 as part of the attack in 1996 — were carried out, respectively, by locals who said they were influenced by Mr. bin Laden and by the Saudi branch of Hezbollah, a Shiite group aided by Iranian government officials." {Link without Title}
- September: Sudan. Brigadier pg. 468 [http://demos.vivisimo.com/query?input-form=simple&v%3Asources=911&v%3Aproject=911&query=khartoum+military+expert+in+bomb+making&x=0&y=0]). The 9/11 Commission final report concludes that the evidence did not support the alleged meetings, and notes that the information was received "third hand". The interrogation records show various possible dates for the first meeting. One dates the meeting in 1994 while another dates it in February 1995. The date of the second meeting is also in doubt, and there was no evidence that bin Laden had left Afghanistan at the time: "The information is puzzling, since bin Ladin left Sudan for Afghanistan in May 1996, and there is no evidence he ventured back there (or anywhere else) for a visit. In examining the source material, the reports note that the information was received 'third hand,' passed from the foreign government service that 'does not meet directly with the ultimate source of the information, but obtains the information from him through two unidentified intermediaries, one of whom merely delivers the information to the Service.'" The same source also claims al-Ahmed was seen near bin Laden's farm in December 1995.The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 468 [http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf]
- , "the consensus view now is that the camp was what Iraq told UN weapons inspectors it was — a counterterrorism training camp for army commandos." ( {Link without Title} ).
- Afghanistan: Armad Jan , Taliban minister, tells Karl Inderfurth , Assistant US Secretary of State, that the Taliban "had frustrated Iranian and Iraqi efforts to contact" bin Laden. But Inderfurth told UPI that "he did not believe the Taliban claim was credible at the time, and that he had no recollection of Taliban officials mentioning Iraqi or Iranian attempts to meet bin Laden." He said, "I never saw any evidence in anything I was doing where there were any Iraqi connections." ( {Link without Title} ).
- Baghdad: in a column in October 2001.
- Washington: Daniel Benjamin , head of the National Security Council 's counterterrorism division, heads an exercise aimed at a critical analysis of the CIA's contention that Iraq and al Qaeda would not team up. "This was a red-team effort," he said. "We looked at this as an opportunity to disprove the conventional wisdom, and basically we came to the conclusion that the CIA had this one right." {Link without Title}
- February, Baghdad: The Mukhabarat arranges for an envoy from bin Laden to travel from Sudan to Baghdad to meet with Iraqi officials; the meeting is extended by a full week ([http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2003%2F04%2F27%2Fwalq27.xml]). These talks, according to the ''Observer'', "are thought to have ended disastrously for the Iraqis, as bin Laden rejected any kind of alliance, preferring to pursue his own policy of global jihad."([http://www.guardian.co.uk/alqaida/story/0,12469,944589,00.html]).
- February 23 , Afghanistan: Osama bin Laden issues a fatwa urging jihad against all Americans. "The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies — civilians and military — is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it..." One of his reasons for the fatwa is the "Americans' continuing aggression against the Iraqi people." Osama mentions aggression against Iraq four times in the fatwa. {Link without Title}
- August, Khartoum: President Clinton orders 80 wrote a report in 1999 questioning the attack on the factory, suggesting that the connection to bin Laden was not accurate; James Risen reported in the ''New York Times'': "Now, the analysts renewed their doubts and told Assistant Secretary of State Phyllis Oakley that the C.I.A.'s evidence on which the attack was based was inadequate. Ms. Oakley asked them to double-check; perhaps there was some intelligence they had not yet seen. The answer came back quickly: There was no additional evidence. Ms. Oakley called a meeting of key aides and a consensus emerged: Contrary to what the Administration was saying, the case tying Al Shifa to Mr. bin Laden or to chemical weapons was weak."[http://www.library.cornell.edu/colldev/mideast/sudbous.htm] The Chairman of El Shifa Pharmaceutical Industries, who is critical of the Sudanese government, more recently told reporters, "I had inventories of every chemical and records of every employee's history. There were no such [nerve gas] chemicals being made here."[http://www.christiansciencemonitor.com/2004/0126/p01s05-woaf.html] Sudan has since invited the U.S. to conduct chemical tests at the site for evidence to support its claim that the plant might have been a chemical weapons factory; so far, the U.S. has refused the invitation to investigate. Nevertheless, the U.S. has refused to officially apologize for the attacks, suggesting that some privately still suspect that chemical weapons activity existed there.[http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/20/international/africa/20khartoum.html]
- August, Pakistan: Stephen Hayes of the '' Weekly Standard '' reported that this month, according to a "Summary of Evidence" released by the Pentagon in March 2005 concerning a detainee held at Guantanamo, it was alleged that this former infantryman of the Iraqi Army who became an al-Qaeda agent travelled to Pakistan with a member of Iraqi intelligence "for the purpose of blowing up the Pakistan, United States and British Embassies with chemical mortars".[http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/804yqqnr.asp] The Associated Press report of the same document includes the caveat, "There is no indication the Iraqi's purported terror-related activities were on behalf of Saddam Hussein's government, other than the brief mention of him traveling to Pakistan with a member of the Iraqi intelligence.... The assertion that the [detainee] was involved in a plot against embassies in Pakistan is not substantiated in the document." [http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20050331-121139-6859r.htm]
- that many of the contacts cited by supporters of the invasion as proof of Iraq and al-Qaeda cooperation "actually proved that al Qaeda and Iraq had not succeeded in establishing a modus vivendi,".Clark, ''Against All Enemies'', p. 269
- December, after President Clinton ordered a four day bombing campaign known as ''Operation Desert Fox,'' the Arabic language daily newspaper ''Al-Quds al-Arabi'' speculated in an editorial that "President Saddam Hussein, whose country was subjected to a four-day air strike, will look for support in taking revenge on the United States and Britain by cooperating with Saudi oppositionist Osama bin Laden, whom the United States considers to be the most wanted person in the world." {Link without Title}
- '' reported that "hundreds of Afghan Arabs are undergoing sabotage training in Southern Iraq and are preparing for armed actions on the Iraqi-Kuwaiti border. They have declared as their goal a fight against the interests of the United States in the region." {Link without Title} Cybercast News Service claims that it received documents from an unnamed government official that appear to substantiate this claim (see below, October 2004). The ''Weekly Standard'' claims that the Kuwaiti government detained some al Qaeda members on the border but notes that the Kuwaiti government would not respond to requests for more information about these alleged detainees.
- May, Iraq: Uday Hussein , according to documents summarized by the U.S. Joint Forces Command Iraqi Perspectives Project, ordered the Saddam Fedayeen to prepare for "special operations, assassinations, and bombings, for the centers and traitor symbols in London, Iran and the self-ruled areas the special operation was referred to as "Blessed July," described by defense analyst Kevin Woods as "a regime-directed wave of "martyrdom" operations against targets in the West." Woods claims that plans for Blessed July "were well under way at the time of the coalition invasion"; he also notes that the Fedayeen was racked by corruption. "In the years preceding the coalition invasion," he continues, "Iraq's leaders had become enamored of the belief that the spirit of the Fedayeen's 'Arab warriors' would allow them to overcome the Americans' advantages. In the end, however, the Fedayeen fighters proved totally unprepared for the kind of war they were asked to fight, and they died by the thousands."[http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20060501faessay85301/kevin-woods-james-lacey-williamson-murray/saddam-s-delusions-the-view-from-the-inside.html BBC Correspondent Paul Reynolds writes of the "Blessed July" plans, "What these targets might have been is not stated and the plans, like so many drawn up by the Iraqis, came to nothing, it seems."[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4837276.stm]
- September, Baghdad: 1998 ).
- Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: ) The CIA has concluded that while Shakir al-Azzawi was indeed an Iraqi with connections to the embassy in Malaysia who helped organize the Kuala Lumpur meeting, he is a different person from a Fedayeen officer with a similar name ( {Link without Title} ).
- February 25 – February 27 : Two unidentified Iraqi men are arrested in Germany on suspicion of spying. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1196283.stm According to the ''Weekly Standard'', an Arab newspaper in Paris called ''Al-Watan al-Arabi'' reported: "The arrests came in the wake of reports that Iraq was reorganizing the external branches of its intelligence service and that it had drawn up a plan to strike at US interests around the world through a network of alliances with extremist fundamentalist parties. The most serious report contained information that Iraq and Osama bin Ladin were working together. German authorities were surprised by the arrest of the two Iraqi agents and the discovery of Iraqi intelligence activities in several German cities. German authorities, acting on CIA recommendations, had been focused on monitoring the activities of Islamic groups linked to bin Ladin. They discovered the two Iraqi agents by chance and uncovered what they considered to be serious indications of cooperation between Iraq and bin Ladin. The matter was considered so important that a special team of CIA and FBI agents was sent to Germany to interrogate the two Iraqi spies."[http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/981wymiq.asp?pg=2] This report and the interrogation records of the detained Iraqi agents were not discussed in the 9/11 Commission Report, and do not seem to be mentioned in other media sources. It is not known whether the arrests revealed any cooperation between the men and either Iraqi intelligence or al Qaeda.
- (as evidenced by a bank surveillance camera photo), and in Coral Springs, Florida on April 11 , where he and Shehhi leased an apartment. On April 6 ,9,10, and 11, Atta's cellular telephone was used numerous times to call various lodging establishments in Florida from cell sites within Florida. We cannot confirm that he placed those calls. But there are no U.S. records indicating that Atta departed the country during this period." Combining FBI and Czech intelligence investigations, " evidence has been found that Atta was in the Czech Republic in April 2001." The Commission still could not "absolutely rule out the possibility" that Atta was in Prague on April 9 traveling under an alias, but the Commission concluded that "There was no reason for such a meeting, especially considering the risk it would pose to the operation. By April 2001, all four pilots had completed most of their training, and the muscle hijackers were about to begin entering the United States. The available evidence does not support the original Czech report of an Atta-Ani meeting." (p. 229) Vice President Dick Cheney, who was a proponent of the theory that Atta had met al-Ani in Prague, acknowledged in an interview on March 29, 2006: "We had one report early on from another intelligence service that suggested that the lead hijacker, Mohamed Atta, had met with Iraqi intelligence officials in Prague, Czechoslovakia. And that reporting waxed and waned where the degree of confidence in it, and so forth, has been pretty well knocked down now at this stage, that that meeting ever took place."[http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/03/20060329-2.html
- July, Rome: 2001 A June or July meeting in Rome is completely at odds with everything known about Atta's whereabouts in mid-2001.
- . This editorial, by itself, is not proof of Iraqi complicity in the attacks of 9/11. No evidence of foreknowledge of the attacks on the part of the Iraqi government has ever materialized.
- , even on a classified basis, and refuses to discuss other than to acknowledge its existence.
- froze the assets of the Al Taqwa network, accusing them of raising, managing and distributing money for al Qaeda under the guise of legitimate business activity. Youssef Nada and Ali Ghalib Himmat , the two principals of Al Taqwa, are members of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood . Nada was known to have good relations with Saddam Hussein . Asat Trust , a Liechtenstein -based company earning revenue from Iraq’s Oil for Food contracts, also had its assets frozen due to its relationship to Al Taqwa. Marc Perelman speculates: “The operation raises the possibility that Iraq quietly funneled money to Al Qaeda by deliberately choosing an oil company working with one of the terrorist group's alleged financial backers.” {Link without Title}
- January: Captured al-Qaeda leader Ibn Al-Shaykh Al-Libi , after being Secretly Handed Over To Egypt By The United States For Interrogation , gives specific and elaborate details of ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda, included training in explosives, biological, and chemical weapons. His account, which has since been repudiated by himself, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the CIA as being fabricated under duress (see below), nevertheless provides much of the basis for United States claims of the threat from Hussein's continued regime, including Secretary of State Colin Powell's speech to the UN the next year.
- February: U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency issues Defense Intelligence Terrorism Summary No. 044-02 , the existence of which was revealed on December 9 , 2005 , by Doug Jehl in the ''New York Times, ''impugning the credibility of information gleaned from captured al-Libi. The DIA report suggested that al-Libi had been "intentionally misleading" his interrogators. The DIA report also cast significant doubt on the possibility of a Saddam Hussein-al-Qaeda conspiracy: "Saddam’s regime is intensely secular and is wary of Islamic revolutionary movements. Moreover, Baghdad is unlikely to provide assistance to a group it cannot control." {Link without Title}
- 2002 p. 13 Al Qaeda expert Jason Burke wrote after interviewing Shahab, "Shahab is a liar. He may well be a smuggler, and probably a murderer too, but substantial chunks of his story simply are not true." {Link without Title} .
- May – July : member Roger Cressey noted, "People were more obsessed with developing the coalition to overthrow Saddam than to execute the president’s policy of preemption against terrorists." It has been suggested by military officials that the White House let Zarqawi's camp continue to operate inside Iraq because destroying the camp "could undercut its case for war against Saddam."[http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4431601/] While U.S. officials now think reports of al-Zarqawi's leg being amputated are incorrect, they still believe that al-Zarqawi may have received medical treatment in Baghdad.[http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/06/15/bush.alqaeda/] However, a CIA report in late 2004 concluded that there was no evidence Saddam's government was involved or even aware of this medical treatment, and found "no conclusive evidence the Saddam Hussein regime had harbored Zarqawi."[http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6189795/][http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/IraqCoverage/story?id=144396&page=1] One U.S. official summarized the report: "The evidence is that Saddam never gave Zarqawi anything."[http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1005-01.htm] Indeed, scholars have added that such cooperation between Saddam and al-Zarqawi goes against everything known about both people. Counterterrorism scholar Loretta Napoleoni quotes former Jordanian parliamentarian Layth Shubaylat, who was personally acquainted with both Zarqawi and Saddam Hussein: "'First of all, I don't think the two ideologies go together, I'm sure the former Iraqi leadership saw no interest in contacting al-Zarqawi or al-Qaeda operatives. The mentality of al-Qaeda simply doesn't go with the Ba'athist one.' When he was in prison Jordan with Shubaylat , 'Abu Mos'ab wouldn't accept me,' said Shubaylat, 'because I'm opposition, even if I'm a Muslim.' How could he accept Saddam Hussein, a secular dictator?" Loretta Napoleoni, ''Insurgent Iraq: Al Zarqawi and the New Generation''. New York: Seven Stories Press, 2005, p. 117. 1583227059 A letter from an Iraqi intelligence official dated August 2002 that was recovered in Iraq by U.S. forces and released by the Pentagon in March 2006 suggests that Saddam's government was "on the lookout" for Zarqawi in Baghdad and noted that finding Zarqawi was a "top priority"; three responses to the letter claimed that there was "no evidence" Zarqawi was in Iraq. This suggests that if Zarqawi was in Baghdad during this time, it was without the knowledge or support of the Baathist regime.[http://www.forbes.com/home/feeds/ap/2006/03/16/ap2599607.html]
- . The DIA and CIA have since indicated their belief that al-Libi (who recanted the story in January 2004) fabricated the entire thing under harsh interrogation techniques. {Link without Title}
- October, U.K.: British Intelligence investigation of possible links between Iraq and al-Qaeda issues report concluding: "We have no intelligence of current cooperation between Iraq and al-Qaeda and do not believe that al-Qaeda plans to conduct terrorist attacks under Iraqi direction." {Link without Title}
- '' editor Stephen Hayes points to additional evidence indicating that the group may have received some funding from Saddam's regime. Hayes notes that the support was suspended "temporarily it seems — after high-profile kidnappings, including of Americans, focused international attention on the terrorist group." {Link without Title} Hayes cites documentation demonstrating that the Saddam regime was cutting off all contact with the group: "We have all cooperated in the field of intelligence information with some of our friends to encourage the tourists and the investors in the Philippines ... The kidnappers were formerly (from the previous year) receiving money and purchasing combat weapons. From now on we (IIS) are not giving them this opportunity and are not on speaking terms with them."
- October 8 , Washington, D.C.: Knight Ridder reports that "a growing number of military officers, intelligence professionals and diplomats" have serious doubts about the Bush Administration's case for war, specifically raising doubts about claimed "links" between Iraq and al-Qaeda. One official told the reporter that "Analysts at the working level in the intelligence community are feeling very strong pressure from the Pentagon to cook the intelligence books." {Link without Title}
- , officer at the Iraqi embassy in Pakistan, is identified as "responsible for the coordination of activities with the Osama bin Laden group" in a list of names published in an issue of the ''Babylon Daily Political Newspaper'' by Uday Hussein, interpreted by Judge Gilbert S. Merritt as some kind of private memo ([http://tennessean.com/nation-world/archives/03/06/34908297.shtml?Element_ID=34908297]). Judge Merrit leaves out the passage published at the top of the list, which undercuts his story: "This is a list of the henchmen of the regime. Our hands will reach them sooner or later. Woe unto them." The Defense Intelligence Agency's only comment on the list was, "There are innumerable lists. So you have to ask what does it mean to be on this list? It takes time to sort through all this. People give names all over the place."[http://tennessean.com/nation-world/archives/03/06/34908298.shtml?Element_ID=34908298]
- January: The CIA releases a special Report to Congress entitled ''Iraqi Support for Terrorism''. The report states "We have reporting from reliable clandestine and press sources that (deleted) direct meetings between senior Iraqi representatives and top al-Qaida operatives took place from the early 1990s to the present." (Page 326) The report concludes that "In contrast to the patron-client pattern between Iraq and its Palestinian surrogates, the relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida appears to more closely resemble that of two independent actors trying to exploit each other — their mutual suspicion suborned by al-Qaida's interest in Iraqi assistance, and Baghdad's interest in al-Qaida's anti-U.S. attacks…. The Intelligence Community has no credible information that Baghdad had foreknowledge of the 11 September attacks or any other al-Qaida strike." (Page 332) ( Prewar Intelligence Assessment (PDF) ) The report also questioned the information coming from captured al-Qaeda leader in February 2003.
- February 5 New York Colin Powell gives speech to the United Nations Security Council: someone want to write this up? -->
- February: Israeli intelligence reports that while the Iraqi government had been funding Palestinian terrorist groups such as the Arab Liberation Front they had not been able to conclusively link the Iraqi government and Al-Qaeda. {Link without Title}
- testifies before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, repeating the now-discredited claim that "Iraq has in the past provided training in document forgery and bomb-making to al Qaeda. It has also provided training in poisons and gases to two al Qaeda associates. One of these associates characterized the relationship he forged with Iraqi officials as successful." The associate he mentioned was Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, who was known to the DIA to have fabricated the story in response to harsh treatment by the Egyptian captors to whom he had been Rendered . {Link without Title}
- March 19 , Iraq: United States and coalition troops invade Iraq, beginning with large scale air strikes against specific targets.
- headquarters. The memo discusses a planned trip by a trusted aide of Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden to Baghdad. The story says the trip is "thought to have ended disastrously for the Iraqis, as bin Laden rejected any kind of alliance, preferring to pursue his own policy of global jihad, or holy war." Martin Bright and Jason Burke contend that "the find is unlikely to be the 'smoking gun' the US and Britain are looking for." {Link without Title}
- as well as on Secretary of State Colin Powell's speech to the United Nations that February. Judge Baer said, however, that these sources had provided "few actual facts" demonstrating that Iraq provided any material support for the attack and instead based his decision on this point of fact entirely upon their expertise. No testimony was introduced into the case by defendants to counter the statements of Woolsey or Powell. {Link without Title}
- October 19 : Al-Jazeera broadcasts Osama bin Laden's message to the Iraqi people, in which he expresses satisfaction at having lured the U.S. military into a conflict with Muslims in Iraq: "Be glad of the good news: America is mired in the swamps of the Tigris and Euphrates. Bush is, through Iraq and its oil, easy prey. Here is he now, thank God, in an embarrassing situation and here is America today being ruined before the eyes of the whole world." {Link without Title}
- December 13 : Saddam Hussein's arrest in Iraq yields a document from Saddam directing Iraqi Baathist insurgents to beware of working with foreign jihadists. The ''New York Times'' reported that the directive "provides a second piece of evidence challenging the Bush administration contention of close cooperation between Mr. Hussein's government and terrorists from al-Qaeda. C.I.A. interrogators have already elicited from the top Qaeda officials in custody that, before the American-led invasion, Osama bin Laden had rejected entreaties from some of his lieutenants to work jointly with Mr. Hussein."[http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/14/international/middleeast/14INTE.html] Reporter Greg Miller went even further, calling the document "one of the strongest pieces of evidence to contest the repeated insinuations of the Bush Administration that there were links between al-Qaeda and the Baath regime."[http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/01/15/1073877963219.html]
- March: The CIA withdraws its information regarding links between Hussein's Iraq and Al Qaeda based on the 2002 testimony of al-Libi, after he begins asserting that he fabricated them in order to receive better treatment from his captors.
- told investigators he had learned through second-hand sources that Iraq and al-Qaeda had a "relationship that went from opposing each other to not opposing each other to possibly working with each other." Fitzgerald also testified he was "in full agreement" with a statement in the 1999 Congressional Research Service report on the psychology of terrorism regarding an Iraq/al-Qaeda link. The 1999 report stated, ''"If Iraq's Saddam Hussein decides to use terrorists to attack the continental United States, he would likely turn to bin Laden's al Qaeda. al Qaeda is among the Islamic groups recruiting increasingly skilled professionals including Iraqi chemical groups, weapons experts, and others capable of helping to develop weapons of mass destruction."'' When specifically asked about the the 1998 indictment, which had claimed that "al Qaeda reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government, and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the government of Iraq," he responded indicating that he had dropped that language due to conflicting evidence: ''"I can tell you what led to that inclusion in that sealed indictment in May and then when we superseded, which meant we broadened the charges in the Fall, we dropped that language. We understood there was a very, very intimate relationship between al Qaeda and the Sudan. They worked hand in hand. We understood there was a working relationship with Iran and Hezbollah, and they shared training. We also understood that there had been antipathy between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein because Saddam Hussein was not viewed as being religious. We did understand from people, including al-Fadl -- and my recollection is that he would have described this most likely in public at the trial that we had, but I can't tell you that for sure; that was a few years ago -- that at a certain point they decided that they wouldn't work against each other and that we believed a fellow in al Qaeda named Mondu Saleem (ph), Abu Harzai (ph) the Iraqi, tried to reach a, sort of, understanding where they wouldn't work against each other. Sort of, the enemy of my enemy is my friend."'' {Link without Title}
- releases a report assessing the state of prewar intelligence on Iraq. The report concludes that the CIA's assessment that there was no evidence of a formal relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda was justified. (See below).
- releases its final report on the September 11 attacks, concluding that there was no evidence of an operational relationship between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. (See below).
- questioned the timing and manner of the documents' release commenting that if the documents were as remarkable as they appear to be, why was there such a delay in their release and why the administration had not commented on them. {Link without Title} CNSNews has posted translations of some of the documents online and has invited journalists and terror experts to study the documents in person in their corporate offices.
- tells the Council On Foreign Relations that he has seen no "strong, hard evidence that links" Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. He admits in the statement that the information he relied upon for earlier statements linking the two "may have been something that was not representative of a hard linkage." {Link without Title}
- releases newly declassified intelligence documents which suggest that Administration claims of a relationship between Saddam and al-Qaeda contradicted the conclusions of the intelligence community. Levin said, "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." {Link without Title}
- , the leader of al-Qaeda's security committee, publishes a testament on the internet about Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi , the Jordanian terrorist in Iraq who swore allegiance to bin Laden in October 2004. Among other things, the al-Qaeda leader clarifies the relationship between Zarqawi's group and the new Iraq: "contrary to what the Americans continuously claimed, al-Qaeda did not have any connection with Saddam whatsoever. American attempts to connect Saddam to al-Qaeda were in order to create excuses and legitimate causes to invade Iraq. So after we were trapped in Iran, after being forced out of Afghanistan, it became inevitable that we would plan to enter Iraq through the north, which was free from American control. It was then that we moved south to join our Sunni brothers." {Link without Title} Al-Adl described the U.S. invasion of Iraq as a boon to al-Qaeda: "The Americans took the bait and fell into our trap."
- July: Corporal Jonathan "Paco" Reese of the Pennsylvania National Guard, one of the Americans responsible for guarding the captured Saddam Hussein when he was in American custody, tells '' GQ ''magazine that the ousted leader insisted that he had no relationship with Osama bin Laden. {Link without Title} {Link without Title}
- October: In '' Newsweek '' of October 26 , 2005 , Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball describe a "secret draft CIA report" which stated, according to "two counterterrorism analysts familiar with the classified CIA study who asked not to be identified", that
Zarqawi probably did travel to the Iraqi capital in the spring of 2002 for medical treatment. And, of course, there is no question that he is in Iraq now-orchestrating many of the deadly suicide bombings and attacks on American soldiers. But before the American-led invasion, Saddam's government may never have known he was there. The reason: he used an alias and was there under what one U.S. intelligence official calls a "false cover." No evidence has been found showing senior Iraqi officials were even aware of his presence.
- November: The '', an Al-Qaeda official in American custody, voiced by American intelligence agencies, Jehl writes. “Without mentioning him by name, President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Colin L. Powell, then secretary of state, and other administration officials repeatedly cited Mr. Libi's information as 'credible' evidence that Iraq was training Al Qaeda members in the use of explosives and illicit weapons." On November 22 , the National Journal 's Murray Waas describes the existence of the highly classified September 21 2001 PDB described above, informing President Bush that there was no credible evidence of collaboration between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and Al Qaeda.
- December: '' Vanity Fair '' publishes excerpt of counterterrorism expert Peter Bergen 's new book, which cites Pakistani biographer Hamid Mir's interview with Osama bin Laden. Regarding Saddam Hussein, Mir commented that bin Laden "condemned Saddam Hussein ... He gave such kind of abuses that it was very difficult for me to write." {Link without Title}
- 9 December : Doug Jehl continues to report in the ''New York Times'' on the questionable nature of al-Libi's statements regarding ties between Saddam hussein and Al Qaeda, stating that "current and former government officials" had described to him
A classified Defense Intelligence Agency report issued in February 2002 ( See Above ) that expressed skepticism about Mr. Libi's credibility on questions related to Iraq and Al Qaeda ... based in part on the knowledge that he was no longer in American custody when he made the detailed statements, and that he might have been subjected to harsh treatment. ... They said the C.I.A.'s decision to withdraw the intelligence based on Mr. Libi's claims had been made because of his later assertions, beginning in January 2004, that he had fabricated them to obtain better treatment from his captors. ... American officials had not previously acknowledged either that Mr. Libi made the false statements in foreign custody or that Mr. Libi contended that his statements had been coerced.
- January: '', a group whose leader considers himself the "sworn enemy" of Saddam and who claims to have no ties to Al-Qaeda . Experts argue that Saddam maintained some ties to this group in order to exploit it to use against their common enemy the Kurds. (See above, Summer 2001).
- 's book ''The Osama bin Laden I Know'' is published. Christina Lamb , the foreign affairs correspondent for the London '' Sunday Times '', noted that the book "makes clear that Laden had no link with Saddam Hussein. On the contrary, he told his childhood friend Batarfi, 'This guy can never be trusted.'"[http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,23110-1995011,00.html] In the book, Bergen discusses his conversations with bin Laden's Pakistani biographer Hamid Mir (see above, December 2005). Among other things, Mir tells Bergen that bin Laden cursed Saddam, calling him a "socialist motherfucker" and said "the land of the Arab world, the land is like a mother, and Saddam Hussein is fucking his mother."[http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,18231987%255E7582,00.html]
- '' publishes information about recently declassified slide show presentation prepared for a secret Pentagon briefing in 2002.[http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10663343/site/newsweek/] The topic of the briefing was links between Saddam and al-Qaeda, and the slides include previously unpublished information about allegations that Mohamed Atta met an Iraqi official in April 2001. While Delroy Murdock claimed that the slides were new evidence that the meeting might have occurred[http://www.cbs47.tv/news/news_commentary/story.aspx?content_id=05843205-D93A-48C5-A7B6-C23082FC4517], ''Newsweek'' then reported that "four former senior intel officials who monitored investigations into Atta's alleged Iraqi contacts say they never heard the airport anecdote." Another intelligence official "rejected" the anecdotal evidence. ''Newsweek'' concluded that the briefing "helped keep the tale alive" even though it had been rejected by intelligence experts.
- 21 January : Osama bin Laden tape is released in which the terrorist leader addresses American citizens, claiming that the American invasion of Iraq has led to a situation in which "there is no difference between this criminality and Saddam's criminality." {Link without Title}
- , the controversial president of the Intelligence Summit, claims the tapes provide evidence that Saddam had ties to terrorists. Representative Hoekstra later said he felt the tapes were primarily of "historical interest" and cautioned, "I tried to stay away from whatever claims Loftus was making." {Link without Title}
- 13 February : ''Weekly Standard'' web published a story about documents seized from the Iraqi Foreign Ministry building in the days after the fall of Baghdad. Several sourced indicated seeing a document described as "listing jihadists" in Iraq. Also found were "16 or 17 floppy disks from the personal computer of Naji Sabri" believed to be "a treasure trove" of information. These documents and disks were presumably handed over to the CIA. Since that time, none of the intelligence officers involved have seen or heard anything more about them. {Link without Title}
- ; the al-Qaeda writer concluded that one of the lessons learned from that experience is the influence of secular Baathist thinking distorts the message of jihad. This writer advises the movement no longer allow the jihad message to be influenced by the Iraqi Baath message. (Page 79) [http://www.ctc.usma.edu/aq/Harmony%20and%20Disharmony%20--%20CTC.pdf] The writer called the Iraqi and Syrian Baath parties "renegades" and noted that "the alliance with them was catastrophic." He also noted that these parties had "no influence or effect on the battle field." The writer identifies Saddam's Iraq one of the "apostate regimes that abandoned Islam."[http://www.ctc.usma.edu/aq/AFGP-2002-600080-Trans.pdf] Another document in the collection lists Saddam as well as Arafat and Hikmatyar among Islamic leaders who lack "manhood" and suggests that "they are useless. Beware of them."[http://www.ctc.usma.edu/aq/AFGP-2002-600053-Trans.pdf]
- , the Directorate of National Intelligence, noted that "Intelligence community analysts from the CIA and the DIA reviewed the translations and found that while fascinating from a historical perspective, the tapes do not reveal anything that changes their postwar analysis of Iraq's weapons programs, nor do they change the findings contained in the comprehensive Iraq Survey Group report." {Link without Title} ABC News reporter Brian Ross commented that people on both sides of this controversy will use these tapes to support their side.
- , confirming that the Administration distorted intelligence findings to try to claim the opposite: "The main thing that happened there, particularly with reference to this issue of, was there a relationship between the Saddam regime and al-Qaida — was a selective use of bits and pieces of reporting to try to build the case that in this case there was some kind of alliance without really reflecting the analytic judgment of the intelligence community that there was not." {Link without Title}
- translation of the document suggests that the letter warned Iraqi agents to "be on the lookout" for Zarqawi and other al Qaeda agents; AP reports that "Attached were three responses in which agents said there was no evidence al-Zarqawi or the other man were in Iraq."[http://www.forbes.com/home/feeds/ap/2006/03/16/ap2599607.html] A third document contains third-hand speculation by an Afghani Consul that the U.S. has proof that Iraq cooperated with bin Laden. ABC News has noted that while the document is suggestive, "the sourcing is questionable — i.e. an unnamed Afghan 'informant' reporting on a conversation with another Afghan 'consul.' The date of the document — four days after 9/11 — is worth noting but without further corroboration, this document is of limited evidentiary value."[http://abcnews.go.com/International/IraqCoverage/story?id=1734490&page=1] The ''Los Angeles Times'' notes that "the documents do not appear to offer any new evidence of illicit activity by Hussein, or hint at preparations for the insurgency that followed the invasion."[http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/la-na-ushussein17mar17,1,2360853.story]
- writes an op-ed in the ''New York Times'' addressing the release of the Operation Iraqi Freedom Documents , noting a significant problem for proponents of the theory of Saddam/al-Qaeda collaboration: "Another striking feature about the supposed Qaeda-Iraq connection is that since the fall of the Taliban, not one of the thousands of documents found in Afghanistan substantiate such an alliance, even though Al Qaeda was a highly bureaucratic organization that required potential recruits to fill out application forms." {Link without Title}
The .
Looking at pre-war intelligence on Iraq, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence examined "the quality and quantity of U.S. intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, ties to terrorist groups, Saddam Hussein’s threat to stability and security in the region, and his repression of his own people;" and "the objectivity, reasonableness, independence, and accuracy of the judgments reached by the Intelligence Community".
Based on the information the CIA made available to the Senate Committee, the committee published a series of conclusions in the Senate Report Of Pre-war Intelligence On Iraq . These included the following:
::Conclusion 91. The Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) assessment that Iraq had maintained ties to several secular Palestinian terrorist groups and with the Mujahidin e-Khalq was supported by the intelligence. The CIA was also reasonable in judging that Iraq appeared to have been reaching out to more effective terrorist groups, such as Hizballah and Hamas, and might have intended to employ such surrogates in the event of war. (Page 345)
::Conclusion 92. The CIA's examination of contacts, training, safehaven and operational cooperation as indicators of a possible Iraq-al-Qaida relationship was a reasonable and objective approach to the question. (Page 345)
::Conclusion 93. The Central Intelligence Agency reasonably assessed that there were likely several instances of contacts between Iraq and al-Qaida throughout the 1990s, but that these contacts did not add up to an established formal relationship. (Page 346)
::Conclusion 94. The CIA reasonably and objectively assessed in Iraqi Support for Terrorism that the most problematic area of contact between Iraq and al-Qaida were the reports of training in the use of non-conventional weapons, specifically chemical and biological weapons. (Page 346)
::Conclusion 95. The CIA’s assessment on safehaven — that al-Qaida or associated operatives were present in Baghdad and in northeastern Iraq in an area under Kurdish control — was reasonable. (Page 347)
::Conclusion 96. The CIA's assessment that to date there was no evidence proving Iraqi complicity or assistance in an al-Qaida attack was reasonable and objective. No additional information has emerged to suggest otherwise. (Page 347)
::Conclusion 97. The CIA's judgment that Saddam Hussein, if sufficiently desperate, might employ terrorists with a global reach — al-Qaida — to conduct terrorist attacks in the event of war, was reasonable. No information has emerged thus far to suggest that Saddam did try to employ al-Qaida in conducting terrorist attacks. (Page 348)
- While speaking at the Pentagon on February 17 1998 , President Bill Clinton warned of the "reckless acts of outlaw nations and an unholy axis of terrorists, drug traffickers and organized international criminals." These "predators of the twenty-first century," he said "will be all the more lethal if we allow them to build arsenals of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and missiles to deliver them. We simply cannot allow that to happen. There is no more clear example of this threat than Saddam Hussein's Iraq." {Link without Title}
- "Al-Qaeda reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al-Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al-Qaeda would work cooperatively with the government of Iraq." — Patrick Fitzgerald , U.S. attorney in an indictment of Osama bin Laden, unsealed November 4 1998 (Page 128) {Link without Title}
- "We do have solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of al-Qaeda members, including some that have been in Baghdad," — U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, September 2002 {Link without Title}
- "We have solid reporting of senior-level contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda going back a decade. ... We have credible reporting that al-Qaeda leaders sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire WMD capabilities." — CIA Director George J. Tenet, October 2002 {Link without Title}
- "We could find no provable connection between Hussein and al-Qaeda." — Senior CIA official, summing up conclusions of a 2003 report by the Directorate of Intelligence, 4 March 2004 . {Link without Title}
- "There is no doubt in my mind that trained them [al-Qaeda in how to prepare and deliver anthrax and to use terror weapons." — Former U.S. Navy Secretary John Lehman , after reading classified intelligence as a member of the congressional commission investigating the September 11 attacks [http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/002/889jldct.asp?pg=2]
- "The al-Shifa facility had been under surveillance for some time because of a variety of intelligence reports, including HUMINT reports identifying it as a WMD-related facility, indirect links between the facility and bin Laden and the Iraqi chemical weapons program, and extraordinary security — including surface-to-air missiles – used to protect it during its construction. The direct physical evidence from the scene obtained at that time convinced the U.S. intelligence community that their suspicions were correct about the facility’s chemical weapons role and that there was a risk of chemical agents getting into the hands of al-Qaeda, whose interest in obtaining such weapons was clear." William Cohen , former Secretary of defense in a sworn statement to the 9/11 Commission, March 23 2004 (Page 9) {Link without Title}
- "What I have said, however, to the liaison committee, and this is backed up by the evidence we have from intelligence, submitted to me by the joint intelligence committee, is that, yes, on the one hand, we do not know of a link between Iraq and the September 11 attack. But on the other hand there are unquestionably links between al-Qaida and Iraq. Just how far those links go is a matter of speculation. This isn't a static situation. It is changing. We are getting fresh intelligence in the entire time." Tony Blair , February 5 2003 {Link without Title}
- "The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al-Qaeda: because there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda. ... There's numerous contacts between the two" — President George W. Bush, June 18 2004 {Link without Title}
- "In my judgment, Saddam assessed Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda as a threat rather than a potential partner to be exploited to attack the United States. Bin Laden wanted to attack Iraq after it invaded Kuwait in 1990 rather than have the Saudi government depend on foreign military forces." Judith Yaphe CIA counterterrorism analyst who specialized in Iraq during the George H. W, Bush administration ''Boston Globe'' ( 3 August 2003 ). {Link without Title}
- Stephen Hayes's book, titled "The Connection", details this alleged link and is entirely based upon a report by the Undersecretary of Defense, Douglas Feith — which has since been characterized by the Pentagon as 'inaccurate'. It "is a listing of a mass of unconfirmed reports, many of which themselves indicate that the two groups continued to try to establish some sort of relationship. If they had such a productive relationship, why did they have to keep trying?" W. Patrick Lang, former head of the Middle East section of Defense Intelligence Agency {Link without Title} .
- An article in the ''Times Online ''quotes a recently-leaked 'Top Secret' UK government memo: ''marked "SECRET AND STRICTLY PERSONAL," dated eight months before Bush sent us into Iraq, following a closed meeting with the President, reads, "C {(head of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove) states that} military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam through military action justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WDM. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."'' Times Online
- ''"In 125 separate appearances, they (Bush, Cheney, Powell, Rumsfeld and Rice) made {...} 61 misleading statements about Iraq's relationship with al-Qaeda"'' — Report by the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform — Minority Staff pdf
- ''"We owe it to the memories of those who lost their lives September 11 to remember, to reflect, and bring justice to those responsible.
:''"We also have a similar obligation not to use the events of 9/11, and the great loss which so many endured, as a pretext for launching a war against Iraq.
:''"Iraq was not responsible for 9/11.
:''"Iraq has not been linked to 9/11.
"Yet here we are on the anniversary of that grim day, and the Administration is attempting to reframe 9/11 by beating the drum for war against a nation not connected to 9/11."
:Hayes: ''"Ma'am, I'm sorry, but you're mistaken. There's evidence everywhere. We get access to it. Unfortunately others don't. But the evidence is very clear."
:Costello: ''"What evidence is there?"
:Hayes: ''"The connection between individuals who were connected to Saddam Hussein, folks who worked for him, we've seen it time and time again."
:Costello: ''"Well, are you saying that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11?"
:Hayes: ''"I'm saying that Saddam Hussein — and I think you're losing track of what we're trying to talk about here — Saddam Hussein and people like him were very much involved in 9/11."
:Costello: ''" is no evidence Hussein was involved in 9/11 ."
:Hayes: ''"Well, I'm sorry, you haven't looked in the right places."
"I haven't seen compelling evidence of that"
"I think it undermines the confidence of the American people. I think it shows a contempt for the American people. Unless Robin is going to some tippy-top secret briefing, I'm not sure what Robin’s source of information is."
"Extensive research reveals that the facts are clear — Saddam Hussein and Iraq had nothing whatsoever to do with the terrorists' attacks."
- "I have not seen one.... I have never seen any evidence to suggest there was one." Colin Powell, when asked whether there had been a "connection between Saddam Hussein and the terrorist attack of 9/11". 20/20 interview, September 9 2005
- "The Iraqi secret services had links to these groups through a person called Faruq Hajizi, later named Iraq's ambassador to Turkey and arrested after the fall of Saddam's regime as he tried to re-enter Iraq. Iraqi secret agents helped terrorists enter the country and directed them to the Ansar al-Islam camps in the Halbija area." Former Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, May 23rd, 2005 {Link without Title}
- "There was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida. This administration never said that the 9-11 attacks were orchestrated between Saddam and al-Qaida. We did say there were numerous contacts between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida, for example, Iraqi intelligence agents met with (Osama) bin Laden, the head of al-Qaida in Sudan." — President George W. Bush, June 17 , 2005 {Link without Title}
- "There was no question in our minds that there was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. We have found no relationship whatever between Iraq and 9/11." — Thomas Kean, chairman of the 9/11 Commission, July 22 2004 {Link without Title}
- "There were contacts between Iraq and al-Qa'eda, a number of them, some of them a little shadowy. They were definitely there." — Thomas Kean, July 22 2004 {Link without Title}
- "To my knowledge, I have not seen any strong, hard evidence that links the two." — Donald Rumsfeld, October 2004, referring to Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. {Link without Title}
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