WASHINGTON, July 7: A US commission probing the Sept 11 attacks ratcheted up its public dispute with the White House on Tuesday, saying it was aware of no new information proving the existence of collaborative pre-war ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda , despite the administration's claims to the contrary.
The brief statement came in response to comments by Vice President Richard Cheney, who suggested the 9/11 commission might have not had access to all available information of the subject.
But the panel made up of 10 prominent Americans representing both major political parties disagreed. "After examining available transcripts of the vice president's public remarks, the 9/11 commission believes it has access to the same information the vice president has seen regarding contacts between Al Qaeda and Iraq prior to the 9/11 attacks," the statement said.
The terse repartee was the latest in a series of testy exchanges triggered by the commission's finding that the government of Saddam Hussein and the Al Qaeda network had no "collaborative relationship".
The finding, made public last month, undercut a key argument used by the administration of President George Bush to justify its invasion of Iraq. The administration insisted in the lead-up to the invasion that Al Qaeda and the Saddam government had developed a "sinister nexus" that might result in terrorists gaining access to weapons of mass destruction.
But in a report released on June 16, the commission said Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was actively opposed to Iraq's secular government and at one time even sponsored an anti-Saddam group based in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Later, authorities in Sudan, where Osama had found refuge in the early 1990s, reportedly persuaded the Al Qaeda chief to drop that support and try to make amends with Baghdad, according to the document.
As part of these efforts, a senior Iraqi intelligence official reportedly made three visits to Sudan and finally met Osama in 1994, the report said. But nothing appears to have come out of this courtship, according to the commission.
Osama is said to have requested space for establishing Al Qaeda training camps in Iraq as well as assistance in arming the groups, "but Iraq apparently never responded", said the commission.
"There have been reports that contracts between Iraq and Al Qaeda also occurred after (Osama) bin Laden had returned to Afghanistan, but they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship," the report pointed out.
It noted that two senior Osama associates captured and interrogated by the United States had adamantly denied any ties between Al Qaeda and Baghdad. The White House responded with a barrage of denials led by President Bush himself, who insisted that "there was a relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda".
Mr Cheney echoed this statement in an interview with CNBC television, adding that there "probably" was more information on the subject than members of the 9/11 commission had been able to see. -AFP