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Fox News reports on the Senate Intelligence Committee Report regarding Iraq and AQ (July 2004):

http://www.mrc.org/cyberalerts/2004/cyb20040714.asp#5

But page 316 of the Senate report states that the CIA provided 78 reports from various sources that from 1996 to 2003, Saddam Hussein's regime was actively training Iraqi intelligence operatives for terrorist attacks against U.S. interests.

FNC on Monday night explored another area of the report from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that other media outlets have skipped: Saddam Hussein-controlled Iraq’s role in helping terrorists. On the July 12 Special Report with Brit Hume, Bret Baier reported how “sixty-six pages of the report fall under the heading 'Iraq's Links to Terrorism'” and in it, Baier related, “multiple, credible sources are cited that Iraq provided al-Qaeda with various kinds of training, combat, bomb-making, along with chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear training, backing up public and private statements by former CIA director George Tenet." Baier pointed out: “The details in the report seem to shoot down at least two of former White House counter-terrorism director Richard Clarke's bold claims.”

MRC analyst Megan McCormack noticed the story, which fill-in anchor Brian Wilson introduced: “There's been a lot of emphasis on the negative aspects of the Senate intelligence committee report on U.S. intelligence before the war in Iraq, the parts that show what the Senators believe the intelligence community got wrong. But there's another section of the report about the pre-war intelligence that was right. Fox News Pentagon correspondent Bret Baier reports."

Baier began: "Almost all of the media coverage on the Senate intelligence committee's report about pre-war assessments by the CIA has focused on how harshly critical it is on CIA analysts. However, Friday the acting director pointed to one positive view."
John McLaughlin: "They made the point that we had done very well at our assessment over the relationship between Saddam and al-Qaeda and other terrorists."
Baier: "Sixty-six pages of the report fall under the heading 'Iraq's Links to Terrorism.' While the conclusion reads that the CIA correctly assessed there was no hard evidence of Iraq's command and control over al-Qaeda or no hard evidence of an established formal relationship, the report lays out the extent of the informal ties. A January 2003 CIA assessment from reliable, clandestine sources states that quote 'direct meetings between senior Iraqi representatives and top al Qaeda operatives took place from the early 1990s to the present,' meaning all the way up to January 2003. Multiple, credible sources are cited that Iraq provided al-Qaeda with various kinds of training, combat, bomb-making, along with chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear training, backing up public and private statements by former CIA director George Tenet."
George Tenet: "Iraq has in the past provided training and document forgery and bomb-making to al-Qaeda. It has also provided training in poisons and gasses to two al-Qaeda associates."
Baier: "The report states that the CIA had multiple sources telling them that Saddam Hussein had issued a standing offer of safe haven to Osama bin Laden and his organization in 1999. The details in the report seem to shoot down at least two of former White House counter-terrorism director Richard Clarke's bold claims. Clarke told 60 Minutes in March quote, 'There's absolutely no evidence that Iraq was supporting al Qaeda. Ever.' Clarke also claimed that Iraq had not been involved in anti-U.S. terrorism since the failed 1993 plot to assassinate the first President Bush in Kuwait. But page 316 of the Senate report states that the CIA provided 78 reports from various sources that from 1996 to 2003, Saddam Hussein's regime was actively training Iraqi intelligence operatives for terrorist attacks against U.S. interests. Here's one particular reference, quote, 'Ten intelligence reports from multiple sources, indicated Iraqi Intelligence Service 'casing' operations against Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty in Prague began in 1998 and continued into early 2003. The CIA assessed, based on the Prague casings and a variety of other reporting that throughout 2002, the IIS was becoming increasingly aggressive in planning attacks against U.S. interests.'
“The ranking member of the committee, Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller, said on Fox News Sunday this weekend he still believes that political pressure was put on the CIA analysts by the Bush administration, despite the fact that the committee's report concluded that none of the analysts or other people interviewed said they were pressured to change their conclusions, and the committee did not find any changes in their analytical judgments."

Don’t count on seeing that kind of story elsewhere given how much the other networks have invested in the storyline that Iraq had nothing to do with al-Qaeda.

-- Brent Baker