Senate finds no al-Qaida-Saddam link

By JIM ABRAMS, Associated Press Writer

Saddam Hussein rejected overtures from al-Qaida and believed Islamic extremists were a threat to his regime, a reverse portrait of an Iraq allied with Osama bin Laden painted by the Bush White House, a Senate panel has found.

The administration's version was based in part on intelligence that White House officials knew was flawed, according to Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, citing newly declassified documents released by the panel.

The report, released Friday, discloses for the first time an October 2005 CIA assessment that prior to the war Saddam's government "did not have a relationship, harbor or turn a blind eye toward" al-Qaida operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi or his associates.

As recently as an Aug. 21 news conference, President Bush said people should "imagine a world in which you had Saddam Hussein" with the capacity to make weapons of mass destruction and "who had relations with Zarqawi."

Democrats singled out CIA Director George Tenet, saying that during a private meeting in July Tenet told the panel that the White House pressured him and that he agreed to back up the administration's case for war despite his own agents' doubts about the intelligence it was based on.

"Tenet admitted to the Intelligence Committee that the policymakers wanted him to 'say something about not being inconsistent with what the president had said,'" Intelligence Committee member Carl Levin, D-Mich., told reporters Friday.
Tenet also told the committee that complying had been "the wrong thing to do," according to Levin.

"Well, it was much more than that," Levin said. "It was a shocking abdication of a CIA director's duty not to act as a shill for any administration or its policy."

Leaders of both parties accused each other of seeking political gain on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Republicans said the document contained little new information about prewar intelligence or postwar findings on Iraq's weapons and connection to terrorist groups.
Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., accused Democrats of trying to "use the committee ... insisting that they were deliberately duped into supporting the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime."

"That is simply not true," Roberts added, "and I believe the American people are smart enough to recognize election-year politicking when they see it."
The report speaks for itself, Democrats said.

The administration "exploited the deep sense of insecurity among Americans in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, leading a large majority of Americans to believe — contrary to the intelligence assessments at the time — that Iraq had a role in the 9/11 attacks," said Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee.

Still, Democrats were reluctant to say how the administration officials involved should be called to account.

Asked whether the wrongdoing amounted to criminal conduct, Levin and Rockefeller declined to answer. Rockefeller said later he did not believe Bush should be impeached over the matter.
According to the report, postwar findings indicate that Saddam "was distrustful of al-Qaida and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime." It quotes an FBI report from June 2004 in which former Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz said in an interview that "Saddam only expressed negative sentiments about bin Laden."

Saddam himself is quoted in an FBI summary as acknowledging that the Iraqi government had met with bin Laden but denying that he had colluded with the al-Qaida leader. Claiming that Iraq opposed only U.S. policies, Saddam said that "if he wanted to cooperate with the enemies of the U.S., he would have allied with North Korea or China," the report quotes the FBI document.
The Democrats said that on Oct. 7, 2002, the day Bush gave a speech speaking of that link, the CIA had sent a declassified letter to the committee saying it would be an "extreme step" for Saddam to assist Islamist terrorists in attacking the United States.

Levin and Rockefeller said Tenet in July acknowledged to the committee that subsequently issuing a statement that there was no inconsistency between the president's speech and the CIA viewpoint had been a mistake.

They also charged Bush with continuing to cite faulty intelligence in his argument for war as recently as last month.

The report said that al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaida leader killed by a U.S. airstrike last June, was in Baghdad from May 2002 until late November 2002. But "postwar information indicates that Saddam Hussein attempted, unsuccessfully, to locate and capture al-Zarqawi and that the regime did not have a relationship with, harbor or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi."
In June 2004, Bush also defended Vice President Dick Cheney's assertion that Saddam had "long-established ties" with al-Qaida. "Zarqawi is the best evidence of connection to al-Qaida affiliates and al-Qaida," the president said.

The report concludes that postwar findings do not support a 2002 intelligence community report that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program, possessed biological weapons or ever developed mobile facilities for producing biological warfare agents.

A second part of the report finds that false information from the Iraqi National Congress, an anti-Saddam group led by then-exile Ahmed Chalabi, was used to support key intelligence community assessments on Iraq.

Kristen Breitsweiser's Response to Ann Coulter

What a class act. I'll say it again, THANK YOU Kristen, for bringing truth to light.

Kristen Breitweiser
Bio

09.06.2006
Dear Ann,
But for the murder of our husbands on 9/11, we would not have gone to Washington to fight for an independent 9/11 investigation. Our involvement in national security would have begun and ended at the voting booth, like most citizens. But for the initial failure of our leaders and elected officials to create an independent 9/11 Commission to investigate the terrorist attacks, we would not have not been forced to publicly fight for it.

An important part of that fight required us to demand the attention of our elected officials by speaking out in the media. Sadly, in many cases, such public pressure (and its possible effect on Election Day) is needed to inspire elected officials to do the right thing. That is not my opinion. That's reality. Had President Bush and Congress impaneled an independent commission on their own, we would not have needed to lobby Washington. Likewise, had Congress thoroughly investigated the attacks and not limited its investigation into intelligence-only areas, we would not have needed to fight for the 9/11 Commission.

We wanted the 9/11 attacks investigated thoroughly and competently so that fewer terrorist attacks would succeed in the future and more lives would be saved on the day of the next attack. When you study the events of 9/11, you learn that many more lives should have been saved, and many damages and injuries could have been mitigated. We wanted to hold the government accountable so that, going forward, our nation would be better prepared for future attacks and disasters.

Fighting for national security--securing the homeland or wanting to make the nation safe--ought to be an unassailable objective, similar to the Amber Alert, Megan's Law, and providing body armor for the troops. Regardless of who the messenger raising these issues might be, the goals are inarguable because they are pure, true, and right. Will these issues receive more focused attention if the message is delivered by people who speak passionately because they have been personally affected? Yes, absolutely. But it's the issue that is unassailable--not the people espousing that issue. If your conservative Republican friends are on the wrong side of the issues, that's their problem.

Ann, the Jersey Girls are moms. We have children. Perhaps one day if you have a child, you may understand the sense of duty and obligation that parents feel toward their children to provide them with a safe and secure environment, both in the present and the future. There were many, many times when we wanted to give up. We were tired and frustrated. But we didn't. The reason? Our children. We were left as their sole protectors; we wanted them to know that even though their fathers were brutally killed, they could be and would be safer living in America.

You complained to many interviewers that they hadn't taken the time to read your book. But did you take the time to look at the Family Steering Committee Web site (www.911independentcommission.org)? You might discover that we shared some of the same disappointments, concerns, and grievances that you have expressed with regard to the 9/11 Commission. The difference is that we made those concerns known while the Commission was doing its work--that is, when it could have made a difference. Why didn't you?

We could have used some more support back then, when we were fighting against individual commissioners' apparent and very possible conflicts of interest and the need for more hard-hitting hearings. We needed more help in fighting for an extended deadline, so as to remove the Commission's final report from the politics of the 2004 election, and a budgetary increase so the Commission could complete its unfinished work on questions about Able Danger. (You see, I did read your book.)

But frankly, I wonder how much you really know about the 9/11 Commission. You don't seem to understand that President Bush picked Tom Kean to be the chairman--not the "co-chairman." You don't seem to be aware that Philip Zelikow was the Commission's staff director or of why that position was so important. You also seem ignorant of the fact that Zelikow had served previously on the Bush National Security Council transition team and on the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. (Do you even know who the current members of PFIAB are or what PFIAB does? Probably not.) I wonder whether you even know that Zelikow is currently serving as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's Special Counsel.

Finally, and most important, are you aware that the White House exercised the "final edits" on the Commission's report? Tell me, Ann, how does that add up to a Democratic whitewash?Because I was one of twelve family members who lobbied fiercely for an independent commission, I was invited to meetings in the White House and on Capitol Hill. I testified before Congress, as well. I wish you knew about the battle that occurred behind the scenes because then you might not make silly statements such as "nobody could ever debate the Jersey Girls." Ironically, it is because we kept most of those meetings confidential that you probably don't know how nastily certain elected officials behaved behind closed doors. Trust me, we were countered, rebutted, and challenged in almost every meeting we attended. Did we go on the record about those incidents? No. We could have, and I can assure you that some of your conservative Republican friends would not have come off well.

When I kept my mouth shut about the way a certain Republican official spoke to me merely because it would have made people in your party look bad, was I being "political"? I'm sure there are some Democrats who would say yes. Did that mean I was being manipulated by your right-wing friends? No. It meant that I had a job to do and I found no reason to distract attention from our cause by dragging people through the mud. There was plenty that I could have spouted off about then, and there still is to this very day. But I don't--mostly because my mother and father taught me to rise above bullies rather than stoop to their level.

You branded the Jersey Girls media whores, a bunch of celebrity-seeking widows who enjoyed their husbands' deaths. Had your friends--including many elected officials in the Republican Party and conservatives in Washington--not put up a fight, and a very nasty fight, we wouldn't have needed to raise public awareness through the media. So if you want to blame anyone for our appearances on television, you should blame your own coterie, not us. We simply wanted to inform the nation about what needed to be done. And we still intend to do that.

Earlier this year, some of us were invited to appear on television to discuss the verdict in the Zacarias Moussaoui case. We agreed to do that because the U.S. has in custody three individuals with a more direct connection to the 9/11 attacks than Moussaoui. To us, it is important to show the world that we are a nation of laws and that the U.S. can successfully bring terrorists to justice. Does that matter to you, Ann? If so, then you ought to support us in our goal of bringing Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, and Khallad bin Attash to trial. Our judicial process should hold these madmen accountable for the deaths of nearly 3,000 innocent people on 9/11.

I am truly puzzled by your accusation that we were operatives of or used by the Democrats. We were never paid for television appearances, we did not drive around in limos, we did not have publicists or PR people, and we wrote all of our own press releases, talking points, letters to the editor, statements, and testimony. (I don't know if the 9/11 family members who chose to support the Republican Party can say the same.) At any rate, your statements are false and defamatory, although that is nothing new for you.

As a public figure I'm in a poor position to hold you legally accountable for your lies. But I will take the time to set the record straight here. The Democrats were nearly the only people in Washington willing to help us. That is not my opinion; it is a fact, notwithstanding a few honorable exceptions, such as Chris Smith and John McCain. We worked with anyone of either party who supported an independent investigation.

For some unknown reason--and as a seasoned right-wing operative maybe you can enlighten us--most Republicans we encountered were completely opposed to learning any lessons from 9/11. It's a shame, too. After all, the Republican Party has been in total control of Washington for the past three years. Had they made true national security a higher priority, perhaps our cities would be better protected against terrorist attacks and disasters. Again, the sorry conditions in our cities and across our nation are a matter of fact, not opinion. Please don't blame me for that failure. Assign the responsibility where it belongs.

Similarly, one of the reasons we are still fighting for national security reforms (and encountered so much resistance in fighting for an independent commission) is that very few people actually read commission reports. They often sit on bookshelves gathering dust. Have you read the 9/11 Commission Report, along with its accompanying footnotes? Have you read the Robb-Silverman report on the Iraq intelligence failures? What about the Joint Inquiry of Congress report on 9/11? How about the Hart-Rudman report? Or even the Bremer report? Probably not. If you haven't, you should, because I think you would find those volumes illuminating.

You have expressed outrage that few of your critics actually read your books. You complain that they merely cherry-pick your most inflammatory comments while missing your overall message. Frustrating, isn't it?You also wrongly accused us of being in the pocket of former president Clinton. The obvious reason for why we always directed our questions and requests to President Bush was simply because Clinton was no longer in office. The former president had no power to commence an investigation into the 9/11 attacks, nor did he have any power to effect change to make the nation safer after 9/11. That power lay in the hands of President Bush--you know, the guy who in your opinion has supreme authority.

Ann, I don't want to get into a debate with you. It's not because I am afraid of you or your nasty bullying tactics. I'm not going to debate you because we have many, many more important issues to deal with in our country right now.But I will leave you with this: We live in America, the world's oldest democracy. Democracy can prevail (is that what you and your friends really fear?), but that requires hard work, as President Bush might say. Every citizen in this country is entitled to his or her beliefs, and every citizen is entitled to participate. We still have the right to speak our minds to effect change (within the parameters of the law, of course). So don't try to silence the voices of victims or anyone else, merely because you disagree with them or feel threatened by their political choices. In my opinion, your method of using intimidation and insults to "win" a debate is truly unpatriotic.

Actually, I expect that you will continue to scream and shout and smear as nastily as you want, so long as you think that that kind of behavior sells books. But we have tackled bigger bullies than you and lived through far worse circumstances than your book tour. We're not intimidated by you. We're not running away.

And under no circumstances will we be silenced by your "godless" rantings and ravings.
Kristen Breitweiser
New York City
June 2006