Congress report: no link Al-Qaeda and Saddam regime re 9/11

Veteran pollsters say the persistent belief of a link between the attacks and Saddam could help explain why public support for the decision to go to war in Iraq has been so resilient despite problems establishing a peaceful country.

C.I.A. Warned White House That Links Between Iraq and Qaeda Were 'Murky'

By PHILIP SHENON

WASHINGTON, July 9 ?- The Central Intelligence Agency repeatedly told the White House after the Sept. 11 attacks that evidence linking Iraq to Al Qaeda was "murky" and conflicting.

That judgment contrasted starkly with the Bush administration's depiction of a close, well-documented relationship, which it used to justify the war in Iraq, according to the findings of a bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report released Friday.

The C.I.A.'s conclusions on the issue of a possible Iraq-Qaeda link largely mirror those of staff investigators of the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks. That panel's staff reported last month that there did not appear to have been a "collaborative relationship" between Iraq and Al Qaeda and that there was no credible evidence linking Iraq to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The Senate Intelligence Committee report, which otherwise harshly criticized the C.I.A. for overstating the threat posed by Iraq before last year's invasion, praised the way the C.I.A. analysts had studied ?- and largely discounted ?- theories about close working ties between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.

"The Central Intelligence Agency reasonably assessed that there were likely several instances of contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda throughout the 1990's but that these contacts did not add up to an established formal relationship," the Senate report said, adding that the C.I.A's assessment that "there was no evidence proving Iraqi complicity or assistance in an Al Qaeda attack was responsible and objective."

The Senate report is, overall, a scorching attack on the C.I.A. and other intelligence agencies, charging that they provided the White House with faulty and overstated information about Iraqi threats in the year before the Iraq war, especially in their claim that Iraq was concealing large stocks of chemical and biological weapons, developing nuclear arms and designing unmanned aerial drones to deliver lethal unconventional weapons.

In a television interview last month, Vice President Dick Cheney insisted that "there's clearly been a relationship" between Mr. Hussein and Osama bin Laden's terrorist network and that "the evidence is overwhelming."

But the Senate report identified five highly classified intelligence summaries prepared within the C.I.A. and then distributed outside the agency after Sept. 11 that suggested that if there were significant ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda, they were difficult to prove.

The agency said it had "no credible information that Baghdad had foreknowledge of the 11 September attacks or any other Al Qaeda strike" and that "the relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda appears to more closely resemble that of two independent actors trying to exploit each other."

The Senate report said the agency had long ago discounted a Czech intelligence report, cited by Mr. Cheney as recently as a few weeks ago, that a ringleader of the Sept. 11 attacks had met in Prague in April 2001 with a senior Iraqi intelligence officer. "The C.I.A. judged that other evidence indicated that these meetings likely never occurred," the Senate report said.

The Senate report also cited other information available to the C.I.A. that suggested that Iraq would have been wary of any dealings with Al Qaeda, noting that the agency was aware that the Iraqi government had a pattern of arresting and executing Islamic extremists, and that the Iraqi government had sought "to prevent Iraq youth from joining Al Qaeda."

The White House is likely to cite other evidence in the Senate report as bolstering its argument that there was a close tie between Mr. Hussein and the terror network, including the disclosure in the report that a captured Qaeda leader, Abu Zubaydah, has told interrogators that he understood that "an important Al Qaeda associate" had "good relationships with Iraqi intelligence."

The associate, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian militant who has been linked to Al Qaeda in the past, is accused by the Bush administration of orchestrating the anti-American insurgency in Iraq. Still, the Senate report noted that Mr. Zubaydah "offered his opinion that it would be extremely unlikely for bin Laden to have agreed to ally with Iraq due to his desire to keep the organization on track with its mission and maintain its operational independence."

The evidence cited in the Senate report suggests that George J. Tenet, the departing director of central intelligence, sometimes went beyond the conclusions of his agency's analysts in appearances on Capitol Hill before the Iraq invasion.

In testimony in February 2003 in the Senate, the report noted, Mr. Tenet said ?- without the sort of qualifications found in the reports of his analysts ?- 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."

Citing Close-Mindedness

The C.I.A.'s assertion, in its national intelligence estimate, that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program "was not supported by the intelligence," the Senate report said, and in some ways reflected an unwillingness to consider the views of outside analysts.

The report said this close-mindedness was most evident in the cases of high-strength aluminum tubes, which the agency believed Iraq was trying to acquire to use as centrifuges to enrich uranium ?- a prerequisite for developing nuclear weapons. The committee found that C.I.A. personnel did not invite experts from the Department of Energy to participate in tests on the tubes. When asked why not, an agency official told the committee, "because we funded it. It was our testing. We were trying to prove some things that we wanted to prove with the testing."

The committee found that all of the equipment acquired by Iraq had conventional military or industrial uses, and the tubes in question appeared to be for building rockets.

The report dealt equally harshly with the administration's contention, voiced by President Bush in his State of the Union speech last year, that Iraq had sought to buy yellowcake uranium in Africa.

Administration officials have since conceded that there was not sufficient evidence for such a charge, and the report faults Mr. Tenet for failing to read the president's speech and fact-check it himself.

The committee faulted the C.I.A. for failing to notify the Senate that the agency was conducting its own review of the report from Niger, or to mention that the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research asserted that it was based on forged documents. Christopher Marquis (NYT)

Overreaching Conclusions

Before the war, the intelligence community's major conclusions about Iraq's biological and chemical weapons programs far exceeded what could be drawn from available intelligence and overstated the judgments of intelligence analysts, the Senate committee concluded in its report on Friday.

The October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate stated that "Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons." But the Senate panel found that conclusion "overstated both what was known and what intelligence analysts judged about Iraq's chemical and biological weapons holdings."

The Senate report also rejected the contention that "all key aspects" of Iraq's offensive biological weapons program had been active before the war. Information reviewed by the committee showed this conclusion was "not supported by the underlying intelligence."

While the intelligence did show that Iraq was renovating or expanding facilities that had been "associated" with Iraq's biological programs and was engaged in research that had biological applications, "few reports suggested specifically that the activity was related" to biological warfare.

The Senate report strongly criticized the handling of information about Iraq's supposed mobile biological weapons facilities provided by a source known as Curveball, finding that the C.I.A. failed to disclose important information about the source's reliability.

In addition, the intelligence community assessment that Mr. Hussein had probably stockpiled 100 metric tons of chemical weapons agents, and perhaps as much as 500 tons, was based on an analytical judgment and not on intelligence reporting, the committee said.

However, the panel found that available intelligence did support a conclusion that biological and chemical weapons "were within Iraq's technological capability" and that Iraq was trying to obtain material that could have been used to produce them. Findings about Iraq's capability to produce and weaponize biological agents were "for the most part supported" by intelligence, the committee found. Richard A. Oppel Jr. (NYT)

Mixed on Missiles

The Senate panel said the intelligence agencies' assessments of Iraqi efforts to build medium-range missiles were "reasonable" and had a "clear foundation" in available information. But the panel said the agencies "overstated" Iraqi efforts to develop pilotless drone aircraft or their potential use in dropping biological weapons on the United States.

The Senate panel said the intelligence agencies had solid reasons to conclude that Iraq was in the final stages of developing the Al Samoud and Ababil-100 short-range missiles, both of which would have violated United Nations' prohibitions on Iraqi missiles capable of traveling more than 150 kilometers, or about 90 miles.

The panel also said the intelligence agencies used "reasonable judgment," based on available information, that Iraq was developing a medium-range ballistic missile that could have traveled even further.

But the committee concluded that the intelligence agencies did not have a basis for concluding that the drones were "probably intended to deliver biological warfare agents." The committee noted that Air Force intelligence officials were skeptical about Iraqi plans to use the drones in biological warfare and had inserted a footnote describing that kind of mission as possible but unlikely.

"Other than the Air Force's dissenting footnote, the intelligence community failed to discuss possible conventional missions," the Senate panel said, even though these less deadly purposes were "clearly noted in the intelligence reporting and which most analysts believed were the U.A.V.'s primary missions."

The panel also said the C.I.A. refused to share information with other intelligence agencies that raised doubts about the claim that Iraq was intending to use drone aircraft to attack the United States. "This lack of information sharing may have led some analysts to agree to a position that they otherwise would not have supported," the panel said. Edmund L. Andrews (NYT)

Artificial Intelligence
By Hudson Morgan
Posted Saturday, July 10, 2004, at 4:21 AM PT

Everyone leads with the bipartisan Senate report released yesterday, which concludes that the U.S. intelligence community systematically exaggerated the WMD threat posed by Saddam Hussein. According to the 511-page analysis, which distills interviews with more than 200 witnesses and thousands of intelligence records, "Most of the major key judgments" in an October 2002 intelligence estimate on Iraq's WMD?-a keystone in the case for war?-were "either overstated, or were not supported by, the underlying intelligence reporting." To wit: Iraq did not have unmanned aircraft to disperse WMD; there is no collaborative relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida; and Iraq did not, in fact, reconstitute its nuclear weapons program. President Bush's response? "We removed a declared enemy of America, who had the capability of producing weapons of mass destruction."

Some of the report's findings?-which were endorsed by all nine Republicans and eight Dems on the committee?-would be laughable if the stakes weren't so high. For example, the CIA's leading Saddam nuke-monger withheld evidence from analysts who disagreed with him, misrepresented his colleagues' assessments, and distributed info inside and outside the agency that was "at minimum, misleading." Then there's the fact that the 2002 intelligence estimate gave a one in two chance that Iraq had the smallpox virus, even though the only fresh intelligence came from a single defector in 2000. What's more, the CIA made a pattern of excising qualifiers and caveats from its dossiers. Worse, the 2002 assessment of Iraq's biological threat was upgraded almost exclusively on information provided by one individual?-who has since been exposed as a fraud?-bent on hyping mobile bioweapons labs. Apparently the one U.S. official who met this individual thought he was an alcoholic, and, no, TP isn't joking when it says the individual's code name was "Curve Ball."

Leading committee Democrat Sen. Jay Rockefeller seemed to be leading the rhetorical backpedaling. "We in Congress would not have authorized that war, in 75 votes, if we knew what we know now," he said. Committee chair Pat Roberts said he still would have supported the war, but only on humanitarian grounds, a la Bosnia and Kosovo.

The NYT paints the best historical context by noting that the investigation was the harshest congressional indictment of U.S. intelligence agencies since the Church Committee report of the mid-1970s on CIA abuses of power.

In its off-lead analysis of the report's political fallout for the White House, the Post wonders whether voters will hold Bush responsible for misstating the rationale for war. Conveniently, Congress won't issue its report on the administration's role in using the apocryphal Iraq intelligence until after the election. Indeed, says the NYT, "The lingering question, not directly addressed by the committee, is whether the White House and Pentagon generated a climate that induced the agency and its director, George J. Tenet, to emphasize the Iraqi threat even though the intelligence data was ambiguous." What is clear at this point, however, as the NYT highlights, is that five classified intelligence summaries prepared within the CIA and then distributed outside the agency after 9/11 note that if there was indeed a Saddam/al-Qaida connection, it was a tenuous one.

CASE PRETTY MUCH CLOSED: On page 66 of the 9/11 Commission's report, the ten commissioners render their verdict on Iraq's relationship to Al Qaeda:

Quote:

Similar meetings between Iraqi officials and Bin Laden or his aides may have occurred in 1999 during a period of some reported strains with the Taliban. According to the reporting, Iraqi officials offered Bin Laden a safe haven in Iraq. Bin Laden declined, apparently judging that his circumstances in Afghanistan remained more favorable than the Iraqi alternative. The reports describe friendly contacts and indicate some common themes in both sides' hatred of the United States. But to date we have seen no evidence that these or the earlier contacts ever developed into a collaborative operational relationship. Nor have we seen evidence indicating that Iraq cooperated with Al Qaeda in developing or carrying out any attacks against the United States.

At the press conference yesterday, Steve Hayes of The Weekly Standard--the most tenacious proponent of a connection between bin Laden and Saddam Hussein this side of Laurie Mylroie--asked the Commission what it made of the Iraq-Al Qaeda allegation. "There's no question in our minds that there was a relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda," answered Commission Chairman Thomas Kean. "At one point, there was thought maybe even Al Qaeda would find sanctuary in Iraq. And there were conversations that went on over a number of years, sometimes successful, sometimes unsuccessfully. ... So I think we are very careful in our wording in using that word collaborative relationship.' I mean, that's what we found. It's language that's evidence-based." Added Vice Chairman Lee Hamilton, "I think there's a very large distinction between evidence of conversations that might have occurred between Iraq and Al Qaeda, on the one hand, and an emerging strategy or emerging assistance -- concrete -- on the other. And what we do not have, as the chairman said, is any evidence of a concrete collaborative operational agreement. Conversations, yes, but nothing concrete." Furthermore, Commissioner Bob Kerrey told a bunch of us TNR reporters later that day, "We had to get language that all ten of us could support."

There are many interesting details that the Commission unearthed and was able to publish. (Which, I have to admit, I didn't think was going to happen.) About intelligence reporting in the mid-1990s that bin Laden sought training in bomb-making from the Iraqis while in Khartoum, the commissioners write in a footnote (note 55 to Chapter two, found on page 468):

Quote:

The source claimed that Bin Laden asked for and received assistance from the [Iraqi] bomb-making expert, who remained there giving training until September 1996, which is when the information was passed to the United States. See Intelligence reports made available to the Commission. The information is puzzling, since Bin Laden left Sudan in May 1996, and there is no evidence that 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 claims that the bomb-making expert had been seen in the area of Bin Laden's Sudan farm in December 1995.

Even more interesting is footnote 76 to the same chapter, found on page 470. That's the footnote attached to the conclusion above. It cites, among other intelligence reports, a DIA analysis called "Special Analysis: Iraq's Inconclusive Ties to Al Qaeda." The commissioners write:

Quote:

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 information alleging such ties came from an al Qaeda operative who recanted much of his original 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 [Khalid Shaikh Mohammed] and [Abu] 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) (Emphasis added.)

We knew about what KSM and Zubaydah said about non-existent Iraq-Al Qaeda ties before, but this business about chemical weapons training coming from an Al Qaeda detainee who recanted it is new. Finally, in case you were wondering, the Commission answers the question of the Atta meeting once and for all. After noting the first really, really big problem with this canard--that it came from a single source, a Middle Eastern student informant to the Czech intelligence service, who "remembered" seeing Mohamed Atta meet with an Iraqi intelligence officer five months after it supposedly happened, when he suddenly saw Atta's face all over TV post-9/11--the Commission writes, "The available evidence does not support the original Czech report of an Atta-Ani meeting." (Interestingly, the Commission adds what I think is new information: "According to the Czech government, Ani, the Iraqi officer alleged to have met with Atta, was about 70 miles away from Prague on April 8-9 and did not return until the afternoon of the ninth, while the source was firm that the sighting occurred at 11:00 A.M.")

In light of the 9/11 Commission's findings--similar in this respect to what the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence found earlier this month--the options left available to those who argue for a link are few. They can successfully argue that the Commission reaffirms contacts, conversations and points of mutual interest between Iraq and Al Qaeda throughout the 1990s. (The CIA has done so all along through this debate.) What they can't successfully do is make the jump to say that those contacts, conversations and points of mutual interest had much significance. I suppose they could argue that the pattern of contacts suggests a risk that they could have at some future point developed into a collaborative relationship, but that rather speculative point was contradicted by Hamilton. Unless some sudden, unexpected information emerges later--which, to be fair, is always a possibility--it may be time to close this case.

what we do not have, as the chairman said, is any evidence of a concrete collaborative operational agreement. Conversations, yes, but nothing concrete.

This Commission finding goes very far in proving the possibility that the DID work together--not that they didn't.

The Vice-Chairman of the 9/11 Commission wrote:

what we do not have, as the chairman said, is any evidence of a concrete collaborative operational agreement. Conversations, yes, but nothing concrete.

Sofia wrote:

This Commission finding goes very far in proving the possibility that the DID work together--not that they didn't.

is any evidence of a concrete collaborative operational agreement. Conversations, yes, but nothing concrete.

collaborative, operational agreement.

What would that be? A video, with a translator? Saddam pointing to maps, and OBL going, "BOOM!"