Reply #9: as in Iraq? [View All]

[peace4all]

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12875384-23109,00.html

Reports undercut Iraq, al-Qaeda link

From correspondents in Washington

April 16, 2005
From: Agence France-Presse

A TOP Democratic senator has released formerly classified documents that he says undercut top US officials' pre-Iraq war claims of a link between Saddam Hussein's regime and the al-Qaeda terrorist network.

"These documents are additional compelling evidence that the intelligence community did not believe there was a cooperative relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda, despite public comments by the highest ranking officials in our government to the contrary," Senator Carl Levin said today.

The declassified documents undermine the Bush administration's claims regarding Iraq's involvement in training al-Qaeda operatives and the likelihood of a meeting between September 11 hijacker Mohammed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in April 2001, Senator Levin said in a statement.

In October 2002, Mr Bush said: "We've learned that Iraq has trained al-Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases."

But a June 2002 CIA report, titled Iraq and al-Qa'ida: Interpreting a Murky Relationship, said "the level and extent of this is assistance is not clear".

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