Saddam had no link with Al Qaeda, says US Senate panel
WASHINGTON, Sept 8: Saddam Hussein provided no material support for Al Qaeda and had no relationship with Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi, despite claims by administration officials including President George Bush, said a Senate report released on Friday.
The report by the Senate Intelligence Committee, drawing on a previously undisclosed CIA assessment, was released as Americans prepared to mark the fifth anniversary of the Sept 11, 2001, attacks in the United States by Al Qaeda.
Democrats said it undercut the Bush administration’s justification for the invasion of Iraq, including recent statements by the president himself.
“Today’s reports show that the administration’s repeated allegations of a past, present and future relationship between Al Qaeda and Iraq were wrong and intended to exploit the deep sense of insecurity among Americans in the immediate aftermath of the Sept 11 attacks,” said Senator John Rockefeller of West Virginia, the panel’s ranking Democrat.
The committee’s Republican chairman, Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas, accused Democrats of presenting a misleading version of the committee’s findings.
“The additional views of the Committee’s Democrats are little more than a rehashing of the same unfounded allegations they’ve used for over three years,” Roberts said in a statement.
Another Democrat, Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, used the report to accuse Bush of making a false statements about ties between Saddam and Zarqawi, the one-time Al Qaeda in Iraq leader killed by US forces. At an Aug 21 press conference, Mr Bush told reporters that Saddam had relations with Zarqawi.
“The CIA’s October 2005 assessment that Saddam’s regime did not have a relationship, harbour or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi and his associates,” Levin said.
“The president’s statement, made just two weeks ago, is flat-out false,” Levin said.
Bush administration officials pointed to supposed links between Saddam and al Qaeda to help justify their case for war before the March 2003 invasion.
The assessment in the CIA report was similar to the conclusion reached by the bipartisan 9/11 Commission, which found that there had been no “collaborative relationship” between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.
Top officials also told Americans that Saddam posed a threat to his neighbours and US interests because he possessed large WMD stockpiles. But no such weapons were found.
