If you read the Newsmax story closely, You'll see that they don't source Allawi's Tuesday statement to the Telegraph.
The attributions to the Telegraph are only the quotations and references to the December 19 2003 story.
There is no source mentioned for the statement of Allawi on Tuesday- perhaps he stated it directly to a Newsmax reporter. This needs to be clarified.
You're right, though I assure all there was no attempt to mislead. The Allawi quotes come from a Dec. 14, 2003 Telegraph report, which was emailed to me. I checked the link but not the date and assumed it was current.
The Ayad Allawi in question, however, is the same man in both cases. What's important is that we now know that the man who was chosen to lead Iraq last week believes Saddam played a key role in 9/11 (whether our leadership wants to say so or not).
Carl/NM
Corrected NewsMax copy has been posted as follows:
New Iraq Chief: Evidence Linking Saddam to 9/11 is 'Genuine'
The man tapped to head Iraq's new interim government has vouched for the authenticity of evidence that links Saddam Hussein to the 9/11 attacks.
Though the notion that Iraq played a role in 9/11 is considered heresy in U.S. intelligence circles, newly appointed Iraq Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said in Decemeber that a document purported to be from Saddam's intelligence service that places lead 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta in Baghdad two months before the attacks was indeed "genuine."
"We are uncovering evidence all the time of Saddam's involvement with al-Qaeda," Allawi told the London Telegraph at the time. "But this is the most compelling piece of evidence that we have found so far. It shows that not only did Saddam have contacts with al-Qaeda, he had contact with those responsible for the September 11 attacks."
As reported by the Telegraph at the time, the document - a handwritten memo, dated July 1, 2001 - provides a short resume of a three-day "work program" Atta had undertaken at Abu Nidal's terrorist training camp in Baghdad.
Nidal was executed by Saddam's secret police in August 2002 in what some suspect was a bid to keep him from telling what he knew about 9/11.