WaPo on declassified report: Hussein's Prewar Ties To Al-Qaeda Discounted

[Sparkly]

Hussein's Prewar Ties To Al-Qaeda Discounted
Pentagon Report Says Contacts Were Limited

By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 6, 2007; Page A01

Captured Iraqi documents and intelligence interrogations of Saddam Hussein and two former aides "all confirmed" that Hussein's regime was not directly cooperating with al-Qaeda before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, according to a declassified Defense Department report released yesterday.

(snip)

The report's release came on the same day that Vice President Cheney, appearing on Rush Limbaugh's radio program, repeated his allegation that al-Qaeda was operating inside Iraq "before we ever launched" the war, under the direction of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the terrorist killed last June.

"This is al-Qaeda operating in Iraq," Cheney told Limbaugh's listeners about Zarqawi, who he said had "led the charge for Iraq." Cheney cited the alleged history to illustrate his argument that withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq would "play right into the hands of al-Qaeda."

(snip)

The CIA was not alone, the defense report emphasized. The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) had concluded that year that "available reporting is not firm enough to demonstrate an ongoing relationship" between the Iraqi regime and al-Qaeda, it said.

But the contrary conclusions reached by Feith's office -- and leaked to the conservative Weekly Standard magazine before the war -- were publicly praised by Cheney as the best source of information on the topic, a circumstance the Pentagon report cites in documenting the impact of what it described as "inappropriate" work.

(snip)

Zarqawi, whom Cheney depicted yesterday as an agent of al-Qaeda in Iraq before the war, was not then an al-Qaeda member but was the leader of an unaffiliated terrorist group who occasionally associated with al-Qaeda adherents, according to several intelligence analysts. He publicly allied himself with al-Qaeda in early 2004, after the U.S. invasion.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/05/AR2007040502263_2.html?hpid=topnews

On edit: AP on the same -- "Cheney reasserts al-Qaida-Saddam link" http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070406/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/iraq_pentagon_intelligence

[soothsayer]

1. Saddam's ties to Al Qaeda , now 100% off!

[Sparkly]

2. Yup, and Cheney's only response is: "Nu uh. Did too."

This should be interesting. :crazy: