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April 07, 2007
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Saturday
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Rabi-ul-Awwal 18, 1428
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No link between Saddam and Al Qaeda: Pentagon
By Our Correspondent
WASHINGTON, April 6: There was no direct link between the Al Qaeda terrorist network and Saddam Hussein, says a Pentagon internal probe made available to the media on Friday. The report said that US military officials reached the conclusion based on interviews with Saddam and two former aides, and documents seized by US forces after Saddam was ousted in 2003.
The probe by Pentagon acting inspector general Thomas Gimble backed earlier intelligence reports prepared before the US-led invasion that Iraq and Al Qaeda had no operational ties.
But in a radio interview on Thursday, US Vice President Dick Cheney insisted that Al Qaeda was present in Iraq before the start of the war.
He said that terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was leading the Iraqi branch of Al Qaeda while other Iraq-based Al Qaeda operatives also participated in planning the Sept 11, 2001, attacks. The Pentagon probe, however, did not support these claims.
The Sept 11 Commission's 2004 report also found no link between Saddam and Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network during that period.
The Pentagon report was declassified on a request by Democratic Sen Carl Levin, who heads the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Commenting on the report Senator Levin said the declassified document showed why a Defence Department investigation had concluded that some Pentagon pre-war intelligence work was inappropriate.
The report, which had been released in summary form in February, said that former Pentagon policy chief Douglas J. Feith had acted inappropriately but not illegally in reviewing pre-war intelligence. Senator Levin has claimed that Mr Feith's intelligence assessment was wrong and distorted but nevertheless formed part of the basis on which President Bush invaded Iraq.
Although the Feith report in mid-2002 offered several examples of cooperation between Saddam's government and Al Qaeda, it also noted the CIA had concluded months earlier that no evidence supported the existence of significant or long-term relationships.
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