"We have no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the 11 September attacks "
President Bush
Which CIA memo? The Feith Memo, I have read, is related to the Office of Special Plans not the CIA. The CIA has for many months criticized the way intelligence reports were handled by the OSP.
In light of the fact that the CIA stated that the uranium case was false because Saddam already had enough uranium and that it did not register with them when they saw a convoy of trucks taking the WMD to the Bekaa Valley, I would not put much confidence in the CIA's intelligence capabilities.
If you see no difference between "they weren't involved" and "we don't have any evidence they were involved", that's your issue. But if you didn't see any difference, why put words in the mouth of the Administration that it never said? Anyway, here's a quote from the memo that illustrates the difference:
CIA and FBI officials are methodically reviewing Iraqi intelligence files that survived the three-week war last spring. These documents would cover several miles if laid end-to-end. And they are in Arabic. They include not only connections between bin Laden and Saddam, but also revolting details of the regime's long history of brutality. It will be a slow process.
It would be wrong to claim that there is evidence of a link between 9/11 and Iraq. But its equally wrong to claim, as you do, that there was no such link.
Which CIA memo? The Feith Memo, I have read, is related to the Office of Special Plans not the CIA.
The OSP stuff was castigated for relying on information from Chalabi's people. The Feith memo includes information obtained from interviews with Iraqi intelligence officers after the war, which necessarily goes beyond anything obtained by Chalabi.
I'm not buying any of the conclusions in the memo yet until the Administration is willing to go public with some of it. But neither am I willing to dismiss it yet.