New CIA assessment finds evidence inconclusive on Saddam-Zarqawi link
Tue Oct 5, 7:56 PM ET
news.yahoo.com
WASHINGTON (AFP) - A new CIA assessment has found no conclusive evidence that former president Saddam Hussein gave safe haven before the war in Iraq to Abu Mussab Zarqawi, a Jordanian extremist with links to Al-Qaeda, a US official said.
The reappraisal, which was based on a mix of new information plus a reassessment of old intelligence, raises new questions about US rationales for invading Iraq that highlighted alleged links between Saddam and Al-Qaeda.
President George W. Bush and other top administration officials have contended that Zarqawi's presence in Baghdad before the war was the 'best evidence of Saddam's links to Al-Qaeda'.
"This mix of the new information and the reassessment -- it does suggest the relationship was not as previously described," said the US official, who asked not to be identified. "But I want to emphasize the point, it does not reach definitive conclusions."
The assessment follows a report by a panel that investigated the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States that concluded there was "no collaborative relationship" between the Iraqi regime and Al-Qaeda.
Although Zarqawi, who has emerged as a leading foe of US forces in Iraq, was believed to have been operating in Iraq before the war, the nature of his relationship with the regime remains murky.
Knight-Ridder newspapers, which first disclosed the new CIA assessment, said the new information included the arrests in 2002 and 2003 of three Zarqawi associates by the regime, one of whom was later released, according to one official.
There are now also doubts about whether Zarqawi received medical attention at a Baghdad hospital in May 2002 as administration officials have asserted, Knight-Ridder said.
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld appeared to allude to the new intelligence on Monday when he told foreign policy experts in New York that he had seen no "strong, hard evidence" of a link between Saddam and Al-Qaeda.
"I have seen the answer to that question migrate in the intelligence community over a period of a year in the most amazing way," he told an audience at the Council on Foreign Relations.
"I just read an intelligence report recently about one person who's connected to Al-Qaeda who was in and out of Iraq. And it is the most tortured description of why he might have had a relationship and why he might not have had a relationship," he said.
Rumsfeld later issued a statement saying he had been misunderstood, but did not disavow his comments.
"He knows that the CIA is going through to reassess all its conclusions prior to the war," Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita told AFP. "And also to refresh what they think those connections are, and that's what he was talking about."
But he said Rumsfeld had no reason to believe the CIA's assessment is different now than what it was before the war.
In September 2002, Rumsfeld used what he said were "bullet-proof" findings by the CIA in leveling charges of links between Saddam and al-Qaeda.
Among the claims were that US intelligence had "solid evidence" that Al-Qaeda members were in Iraq; "reliable reporting" that senior level contacts went back a decade and included possible chemical and biological agent training; and "credible information" they discussed safe haven opportunities in Iraq. |
