A CIA report casts new doubt on links between Iraq and Al Qaeda.

Oct. 26, 2005 - A secret draft CIA report raises new questions about a principal argument used by the Bush administration to justify the war in Iraq: the claim that Saddam Hussein was "harboring" notorious terror leader Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi prior to the American invasion.

The allegation that Zarqawi had visited Baghdad in May 2002 with Saddam's sanction—purportedly for medical treatment—was once a centerpiece of the administration's arguments about Iraq. Secretary of State Colin Powell cited Zarqawi's alleged visit in his speech to the United Nations Security Council.

The CIA declined to comment on the draft report. But officials tell NEWSWEEK that Zarqawi probably did travel to the Iraqi capital in the spring of 2002 for medical treatment.

But before the American-led invasion, Saddam's government may never have known he was there. The reason: he used an alias and was there under what one U.S. intelligence official calls a "false cover."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9831216/site/newsweek/

Is the CIA just now figuring this out? Gees, we're in trouble.

Just figuring this is the right time to "release" this information :)

least to me that the CIA did not believe there was a link between the two. I don`t remember what newspaper report I read at the time however.

let's see, no wmd's, no link between al queda & Iraq, good thing the Iraqi people are so much better off now that helping them build a democracy.

:noshitsherlock:

admitting that the Kuwaiti fable about Saddam trying to kill Poppy Bush was just that.

Could you (or anyone) point me in the direction of anything that delves into this critically?

By Sy Hersh, one of the best investigative reporters around, in The New Yorker;

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/content/?020930fr_archive02

A main 1991 invasion of Iraq lie was Saddam's tanks poised to invade Kuwait, at that border. But the tanks would have been obvious in satelite photos, and their tracks and imprints in the desert sands would have indured for years. NONE were ever shown.

And they're specialty is taking out tin pot dictators, like ours.

...and what happened to him.

WHY THE CIA THINKS BUSH IS WRONG
The president says the US has to act now against Iraq. The trouble is, his own security services don't agree.
13 October 2002
http://www.sundayherald.com/28384

CIA IN BLOW TO BUSH ATTACK PLANS
The letter also comes at a time when the CIA is competing with the more hawkish Pentagon, which is also supplying the White House with intelligence on the Iraqi threat.
October 10, 2002
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,808970,00.html

WHITE HOUSE 'EXAGGERATING IRAQI THREAT'
Bush's televised address attacked by US intelligence
October 9, 2002
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,807286,00.html

Recommended :thumbsup:

cousin would have a good shot of getting into the CIA. I should mention that my cousin has no ears...he's blind...in a coma...and lives in an abandoned mineshaft. Sounds like top CIA material to me.

There is no one single country that could harbor him and his thousands of #2 bad dudes.

sorting through all the stuff they buried now to make it look better for them somehow?

Stop training terrorists.
Stop killing innocents.
Stop the torture.
Stop poisoning Iraqi soil.
Stop ensuring more US soldiers deaths.
Reparations Now!

The Iraqis will be able to do better without us there. The Iraqis do not want us there. The world does not want us there.

The war will not stop after the December elections. Drawdown now!

Who wants to be the last one to die for a lie?

Perhaps it's because their boy is already in the Oval Office?

Curious, as they say.

Think about it.

Also notice this part:

But the Pentagon and Cheney's office have been reluctant to abandon the case: in the months after U.S. and allied forces deposed Saddam, NEWSWEEK has learned, Iraqi informants approached U.S. intelligence personnel with what purported to be caches of documents proving that Saddam's dealings with Al Qaeda were extensive. (One cache of documents even claimed that six of 19 of the September 11 hijackers had been trained to fly in Iraq.)

Current and former U.S. counterterrorism officials said that when officials at the Bush White House learned about the existence of documents linking Saddam to Al Qaeda, they became very excited and pressured intelligence agencies to work quickly to validate and decipher them. However, the CIA ultimately established that most key documents about the Saddam-Al Qaeda connection turned over were faked—just like the documents purporting to show Iraqi purchases of uranium.

All roads seem to lead to Cheney's office--again. ;-)

Well isn't that puzzling ... ok, NOT!

I so hope "Fitz" expands this investigation and exposes all.

:hi:

Terrorists have visited and lived in Florida but that's not an excuse to invade the place.

Which makes it clear that Saddam was NO FRIEND of al Qaeda. That his goals and bin Laden's goals were at odds.

al Qaeda wants a fundie Islamist world, Saddam was a secular evil dictator.

We did bin Laden's work for him with this war.

Saddam did support terrorists, just not al Qaeda, the group which attacked us!!

That the media (who knows this) didn't report this far and wide is reprehensible.

They are complicit in this mess.

As though it were an unsettled matter, you know, sort of up in the air.