Senate: No Prewar Saddam-al-Qaida Ties (MSM Alert)

WASHINGTON (AP) - There's no evidence Saddam Hussein had a relationship with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his Al-Qaida associates, according to a Senate report on prewar intelligence on Iraq. Democrats said the report undercuts President Bush's justification for going to war.

The declassified document being released Friday by the Senate Intelligence Committee also explores the role that inaccurate information supplied by the anti-Saddam exile group the Iraqi National Congress had in the march to war.

It 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 Zarqawi and his associates."

Bush and other administration officials have said that the presence of Zarqawi in Iraq before the war was evidence of a connection between Saddam's government and al-Qaida. Zarqawi was killed by a U.S. airstrike in June this year.

The long-awaited report, said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., a member of the committee, is "a devastating indictment of the Bush-Cheney administration's unrelenting, misleading and deceptive attempts" to link Saddam to al-Qaida.

The report, two years in the making, comes out amid a series of Bush speeches stressing that pursuing the military effort in Iraq is crucial to winning the war on terrorism, and two months before that policy will be tested in midterm elections.

"Based on the characterizations we've seen, it's nothing new," White House press secretary Tony Snow said of the report.

"In 2002 and 2003, members of both parties got a good look at the intelligence we had and they came to the very same conclusions about what was going on," Snow said. That was "one of the reasons you had overwhelming majorities in the United States Senate and the House for taking action against Saddam Hussein," he said.

The report deals with two aspects of prewar intelligence - the role of the Iraqi National Congress and its exile leader Ahmed Chalabi and a comparison of prewar intelligence assessments and postwar findings on weapons of mass destruction and Saddam's links to terrorist groups.

Please read pp 66 from the 911 Commission Report

Please read footnotes...

#76 for Chapter Two page 470.

"....CIA analytic report, "Ansar al Islam: Al Qa'ida's Alley in Northeastern Iraq," CTC 2003-40011CX, Feb 1, 2003. See also DIA analytic report, "Special Analysis: Iraq's Inconclusive Ties to al Qaida, " July 31, 2002; CIA analytic report, "Old School Ties," Mar, 10, 2003. \

We have seen other intelligence reports at the CIA about 1999 contacts. They are consistent with the conclusions we provide in the text, and their reliability is uncertain. Although there have been suggestions of contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda regarding chemical weapons and explosives training, the most detailed infromation alleging such ties came from an al Qaeda operative who recanted much of his orginal information. Intelligence report, interrogation of al Qaeda operative, Feb. 14, 2004. Two senior Bin Laden associates have adamantly denied that any such ties existed between al Qaeda and Iraq. Intelligence reports, interrogations of KSM and Zubaydah, 2003(cited in CIA letter, response to Douglas Feith memorandum, "Requested Modifications to "Summary of Body of Intelligence Reporting on Iraq-al Qaida Contacts (1990-2003)," Dec. 10, 2003, p. 5)..."

What interrogations? Gitmo?
Would you believe every al Queda operative?

Who said Saddam had a hand in the actual 911 attack? Isn't this what the 911 Commission all about? Did Saddam have a hand in the 911 attacks. You could say...no...Saddam had nothing to do with the 911 attacks but there is a paper trail of Iraq and al Queda operatives colobrating.

Look what happen in Sudan back in 1998.
There was a connection back then...nothing to do with 911.
Clarke still stands behind his connections.

"...Al-Shifa, the Sudanese pharmaceutical plant that President Clinton bombed in August 1998, is back in the news. A number of conservative commentators (along with Slate's eclectic Christopher Hitchens) have seized on the incident to question the bona fides of Richard A. Clarke, whose new book, Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror, decries the Bush administration's lack of preparedness for 9/11. In the book, Clarke argues that the bombing of Al-Shifa was not the fiasco it was thought to be at the time, but rather, a strategic necessity. The controversy, you may recall, focused on whether the Al-Shifa factory, located in Khartoum, was engaged in the manufacture or storage* of the potent nerve agent VX for al-Qaida and Iraq. Clarke says there's no question that it was. Aha! gloat many of Clarke's critics in response. Clarke mocks the Bush White House for linking Iraq to 9/11, but Clarke himself recognizes that there was a link between al-Qaida and Iraq as early as 1998."

http://www.slate.com/id/2098009/

From 911 Commission Book.
page 128,

"On November 4, 1998, the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York unsealed its indictment of Bin Laden, charging him with conpiracy to attack US defense installations. The indictment also charged that al Qaeda had allied itself with Sudan, Iran, and Hezbollah. The orginal sealed indictment had added that al Qaeda had "reached an uderstanding 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." 109 This passage led Clarke, who for years had read intelligence reports on Iraqi-Sudanese cooperation on chemical weapons, to speculate to Berger that a large Iraqi presence at chemical facilities in Khartoum was "probably a direct result of the Iraq-Al Qida agreement." Clarke added that VX precursor traces found near al Shifa were the "exact formula used by Iraq." 110 This language about al Qaeda's "understanding" with Iraq had been dropped, however, when a superseding indictment was filed in November 1998." 111

#109: Indictment, United States v. Usama Bin Laden, No. 98Cr. (S.D.N.Y. unsealed November 4, 1998), page 3. For the reports concerning Derunta, see NSC membo. Clarke to Berger, Roadmap, Nov 3, 1998.

#110: NSC email, Clarke to Berger, Nove, 1998, Evidence on Iraqi ties to al Qaeda is summarized in Chapter 2.

#111
Patrick Fitzgerald testimony, June 16, 2004

"...One of the hazy questions that surrounds Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda is really its relationship, if any, with Iraq and with Saddam Hussein.

We've often heard that Osama bin Laden would not have been a natural ally, for religious reasons, for the composition and nature of Saddam Hussein's regime. And our staff report, as you just heard, basically says there's no credible evidence of any cooperation between the two. However, there seems to be some indicia that there may have been.

And, Mr. Fitzgerald, I'm delighted you're here, because this first question really I wanted to ask specifically to you, because it relates to the indictment of Osama bin Laden in the spring of 1998.

FIELDING: This is before the U.S. Embassy bombings in East Africa and the administration indicted Osama bin Laden. And the indictment, which was unsealed a few months later, reads, "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."

So my question to you is what evidence was that indictment based upon and what was this understanding that's referenced in it?

FITZGERALD: And the question of relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda is an interesting one. I don't have information post-2001 when I got involved in a trial, and I don't have information post-September 11th. 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.

And that there were indications that within Sudan when al Qaeda was there -- which al Qaeda left in the summer of '96 or spring '96 -- there were efforts to work on joint -- you know, acquiring weapons.

FITZGERALD: Clearly, al Qaeda worked with the Sudan in getting those weapons in the national defense force there and the intelligence service. There were indications that al-Fadl had heard from others that Iran was involved. And they also had heard that Iraq was involved.

The clearest account from al-Fadl as a Sudanese was that he had dealt directly with the Sudanese intelligence service, so we had first-hand knowledge of that.

We corroborated the relationship with Iran to a lesser extent but to a solid extent. And then we had information from al-Fadl, who we believe was truthful, learning from others that there were also was efforts to try to work with Iraq. That was the basis for what we put in that indictment. Clearly, we put Sudan in the first order at that time as being the partner of al Qaeda.

We understood the relationship with Iran but Iraq, we understood, went from a position where they were working against each other to a standing down against each other. And we understood they were going to explore the possibility of working on weapons together.

That's my piece of what I know. I don't represent to know everything else, so I can't tell you, well, what we've learned since then. But there was that relationship that went from opposing each other to not opposing each other to possibly working with each other.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A46525-2004Jun16?language=printer

Some observations on the report:

The prior SSCI report said that, most of the conclusions in the National Intelligence Estimate issued prior to the war could not be proven. The SSCI wouldn't say if they were right or wrong, just that the intelligence community couldn't prove them and that is a problem. This report says they were mostly wrong, not just unsubstantiated.
This report relies extensively on the ISG report. It is taken as the final word on most issues. It ignores the difficencies in the ISG report. The ISG admitted that the subjects they interviewed had plenty of reason to lie. If they admitted participating in the activities they were asked about they could be prosecuted as war criminals. Somehow the word of former Baghdad officials is taken as gospel. The ISG report also admitted they had technical limitations resulting from security problems in Iraq.
Dr. Kay's report highlighted that PCs and labs had been wiped clean - not vandalized. Also, many of Iraq's key scientists had been murdered. It's hard to find evidence when the perps are dead and the data's been erased.
There is a bogus flip-flopping throughout the report on intentions vs. evidence. When they say they found evidence, like a centrifuge piece in a backyard, the report quickly dismisses it as individuals taking their own initiative, not part of an official program. Conversely, whenever the report admits (citing the ISG) that Saddam still fully intended to reconstitute his WMD programs, the report dismissies it saying ther was no evidence that this was taking place. It's like they're going around the block to exonerate Saddam's regime.
They seemed to ignore any evidence that wasn't in the ISG report, much of which has been posted in this thread. First the CIA says it's a slam-dunk that there are WMD then they say they were 100% wrong, no exceptions. This stinks to high heaven. The Administration acted on their conclusions so they're hanging the Administration out to dry.
It's important to emphasize that the Congress and the President based their decision to go to war on the NIE. The Democrat partisans will blame the Administration saying the findings were cherry-picked, the analysts were pressured and the report was rushed. The prior SSCI report found that the NIE was mostly a summation of estimates that had been around a long time. The "rush" to assemble it resulted in one footnote being misplaced but did not appreciably affect the results. Dr. Kay's effort, the SSCI investigation and the Robb Commission went way out of their way to find examples of the Administration pressuring analysts to change their positions. They found none.
Note that the NIE was prepared at the request of Democrat Sen. Bob Graham. Thanks to Jeffords the Dems controlled the Senate at the time and he was the committee chair.
It is very important to read the section on the "bio weapons" trailers. The media recently accused the President of lying about that, because a team had concluded they weren't bio-weapons trailers. This report makes it very clear that, when the President made those statements, he reflected the official position of the intelligence community and that position remained unchanged for a long time thereafter.

From David Kay's interim report:

On 10 July 2003 an ISG team exploited the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) Headquarters in Baghdad. The basement of the main building contained an archive of documents situated on well-organized rows of metal shelving. The basement suffered no fire damage despite the total destruction of the upper floors from coalition air strikes. Upon arrival the exploitation team encountered small piles of ash where individual documents or binders of documents were intentionally destroyed. Computer hard drives had been deliberately destroyed. Computers would have had financial value to a random looter; their destruction, rather than removal for resale or reuse, indicates a targeted effort to prevent Coalition forces from gaining access to their contents.
All IIS laboratories visited by IIS exploitation teams have been clearly sanitized, including removal of much equipment, shredding and burning of documents, and even the removal of nameplates from office doors.
Although much of the deliberate destruction and sanitization of documents and records probably occurred during the height of OIF combat operations, indications of significant continuing destruction efforts have been found after the end of major combat operations, including entry in May 2003 of the locked gated vaults of the Ba'ath party intelligence building in Baghdad and highly selective destruction of computer hard drives and data storage equipment along with the burning of a small number of specific binders that appear to have contained financial and intelligence records, and in July 2003 a site exploitation team at the Abu Ghurayb Prison found one pile of the smoldering ashes from documents that was still warm to the touch.

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