Rumsfeld backs off al Qaeda assertions
Also concedes WMD claims about Iraq were proved wrong
From Jamie McIntyre
CNN Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld appeared Monday to back off earlier statements suggesting Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had links to al Qaeda.
He also conceded that U.S. intelligence was "wrong" in its conclusions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
"Why the intelligence proved wrong, I'm not in a position to say. I simply don't know," Rumsfeld said in remarks to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.
When asked about any connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda, Rumsfeld said, "To my knowledge, I have not seen any strong, hard evidence that links the two."
As recently as June, Vice President Dick Cheney was saying the opposite.
"There clearly was a relationship. It's been testified to. The evidence is overwhelming," Cheney said in an interview on CNBC's "Capitol Report."
"It goes back to the early '90s. It involves a whole series of contacts, high-level contacts with Osama bin Laden and Iraqi intelligence officials." (Full story)
Before the war, in a speech in Atlanta, Georgia, in September 2002, Rumsfeld said the CIA had "bulletproof" evidence demonstrating "that there are in fact al Qaeda in Iraq."
In his speech Monday, Rumsfeld said the U.S. intelligence analysts have changed their assessment: "I have seen the answer to that question migrate in the intelligence community over a period of a year in the most amazing way."
The independent commission that investigated the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, found no evident that Iraq cooperated with al Qaeda in developing or carrying out attacks against the United States.
The final report by the 9/11 commission, issued in July, also concluded that Iraqi officials might have met with Osama bin Laden or his aides in 1999, but there was "no evidence that these or the earlier contacts ever developed into a collaborative operational relationship."
In June, President Bush repeated his administration's claim that Iraq under Saddam's rule was in league with al Qaeda, saying that fugitive Islamist militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi ties Saddam to the terrorist network.
"Zarqawi's the best evidence of a connection to al Qaeda affiliates and al Qaeda," Bush told reporters at the White House. "He's the person who's still killing." (Full story)
But in his speech Monday, Rumsfeld questioned whether the Jordanian-born al-Zarqawi, who is suspected of being a major force in the current insurgency in Iraq, was working with al Qaeda even as he seemed to have a similar agenda.
"In the case of al Qaeda, my impression is most of the senior people have actually sworn an oath to Osama bin Laden," Rumsfeld said.
"And to my knowledge, even as of this late date, I don't believe Zarqawi ... has sworn an oath, even though what they're doing -- I mean, they're just two peas in a pod in terms of what they're doing."
On the question of whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, Rumsfeld dropped his common assertion that weapons "may yet be found." Instead, he said the world was "a lot better off" without Saddam in charge of Iraq.
"It turns out that we have not found weapons of mass destruction. And does everyone know he had them at one point? Certainly. Does everyone believe -- even those in the U.N. who voted the other way -- acknowledge the fact that he had filed a fraudulent declaration with the United Nations?" Rumsfeld said.
"And why the intelligence proved wrong, I'm not in a position to say. I simply don't know. But the world is a lot better off with Saddam Hussein in jail than they were with him in power."
Rumsfeld also said the United States must remain steadfast in Iraq, lest the perception of wavering empower its enemies.
Comparing the war against terrorism to the Cold War, he credited a firm approach for the ultimate success of the United States against the Soviet Union.
Although many Americans failed to take communism seriously, the United States and its allies "showed perseverance and resolve," Rumsfeld said.
"Year after year, they fought for freedom. They dared to confront what many thought might be an unbeatable foe. And eventually, the Soviet regime collapsed," Rumsfeld said.
But the lesson "that weakness can be provocative" has to be relearned, he said.
To have second thoughts in Iraq, he said, "would embolden the extremists and make the world a far more dangerous place."
Asked if the "no-go" zones that exist in a number of major cities in Iraq would invalidate the results of January's planned elections, Rumsfeld was circumspect.
"It seems to me that that is up to the Iraqis, No. 1. They have a sovereign country. They're going to decide what their elections are. They're going to make every call with respect to it."
He added, "Needless to say, your first choice is to say that every -- we know every Iraqi deserves the right to vote. And one would anticipate that that would be the case.
That answer differed from the one he gave to a similar question last month, when he implied that voting need not be universal.
"Let's say you tried to have an election and you could have it in three-quarters or four-fifths of the country, but some places you couldn't because the violence was too great," he said at that time.
"Well, that's -- so be it. Nothing's perfect in life. So you have an election that's not quite perfect."
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