A New C.I.A. Report Casts Doubt on a Key Terrorist's Tie to Iraq
By DOUGLAS JEHL
Published: October 6, 2004
ASHINGTON, Oct. 5 - A reassessment by the Central Intelligence Agency has cast doubt on a central piece of evidence used by the Bush administration before the invasion of Iraq to draw links between Saddam Hussein's government and Al Qaeda's terrorist network, government officials said Tuesday.
The C.I.A. report, sent to policy makers in August, says it is now not clear whether Mr. Hussein's government harbored members of a group led by the Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the officials said. The assertion that Iraq provided refuge to Mr. Zarqawi was the primary basis for the administration's prewar assertions connecting Iraq to Al Qaeda.
The new C.I.A. assessment, based largely on information gathered after the American-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, is the latest to revise a prewar intelligence report used by the administration as a central rationale for war.
Other reports have cast doubt on the idea that Iraq provided chemical and biological weapons training to Al Qaeda, and the report of the Sept. 11 commission found no "collaborative relationship" between the former Iraqi government and Al Qaeda.
In the months before the war, George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell were among administration officials who asserted without qualification that Iraq had harbored Mr. Zarqawi and members of his terror group.
In June of this year, President Bush described Mr. Zarqawi as "the best evidence of connection to Al Qaeda affiliates and Al Qaeda." But while Mr. Zarqawi was once thought to be closely linked to Al Qaeda, his affiliations are now less certain.
Some American and European officials have said there is no clear coordination between Mr. Zarqawi and Al Qaeda, though their aims are similar. In the meantime, Mr. Zarqawi has emerged as an architect of repeated car bomb attacks and as the most active and deadly foreign terrorist operating in Iraq as part of the anti-American insurgency.
The C.I.A.'s new assessment states that it could not be conclusive even about his relationship with Mr. Hussein's government. The C.I.A. review, first reported by Knight Ridder newspapers, did not say on what basis the earlier assessment was being softened, and government officials declined to explain on Tuesday.
On Monday, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld appeared to back away from earlier claims about the close relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda.
"I just read an intelligence report recently about one person who's connected to Al Qaeda who was in and out of Iraq, and there's the most tortured description of why he might have had a relationship and why he might not have had a relationship," Mr. Rumsfeld told the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.
Mr. Rumsfeld later issued a statement saying that he continued to believe that there had been "solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of Al Qaeda members" before the 2003 war and that "we have what we believe to be credible information that Iraq and Al Qaeda have discussed safe haven opportunities in Iraq."
A C.I.A. spokesman declined to comment about any new intelligence assessment. The government officials who outlined its findings represented several different agencies, but all were guarded in discussing it, saying they did not want to add to tensions between the C.I.A. and the White House.
One government official said the new report "doesn't make clear-cut assertions one way or another" about whether Iraq harbored Mr. Zarqawi. But officials said that it had established beyond doubt that Mr. Zarqawi spent time in Baghdad in 2002, that from there he ordered the assassination of an American diplomat in Jordan and that he was in contact with members of the insurgent group Ansar al-Islam in northern Iraq.
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Cheney's bad memory
There will be quite a bit of fact-checking of tonight's debate between Dick Cheney and John Edwards -- but the vice president probably didn't expect the corrections to begin with a conversation with Elizabeth Edwards on the stage in Cleveland directly after the debate.
During the debate, Cheney, trying to make the point that Edwards missed votes and was hardly ever in Washington, said: "You've got one of the worst attendance records in the United States Senate. Now, in my capacity as vice president, I am the president of the Senate, the presiding officer. I'm up in the Senate most Tuesdays when they're in session." And he ended with this zinger: "The first time I ever met you was when you walked on the stage tonight."
Some pundits were very impressed, apparently, with this line from Cheney. Andrea Mitchell went on "Hardball" and said she thought Cheney did "awfully well at, first of all, putting John Edwards in his place, saying that I have been presiding over the Senate and I didn't meet you until tonight. Talking about his not having been on the job was pretty devastating." Except, it's not true.
He has, in fact, met Edwards, and Elizabeth Edwards corrected Cheney right after the debate, according to Kerry advisor David Ginsberg. The two men first met at a National Prayer Breakfast, the Kerry-Edwards campaign said -- here's the transcript -- and then later in the Senate when Edwards escorted fellow North Carolinian Elizabeth Dole to her swearing-in.
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Quick survey by CBS looks good for Edwards
CBS "instapoll" results, from 200 undecided voters nationwide:
"Who won?"
Edwards: 42 percent
Cheney: 29 percent
tie: 29 percent
"Debate improved your opinion of the candidate?"
Cheney: 29 percent, opinion improved
Edwards: 58 percent, opinion improved
And perhaps the most telling statistic of the quick survey, in light of moderator Gwen Ifill's question to Edwards regarding his qualifications to be within a "heartbeat" of the top job: 24 percent of the undecided voters polled by CBS apparently said that they were "scared" of the idea of Dick Cheney as president.
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Major Features of Bush Tax Cuts
Major features in the $145.94 billion tax cut package signed by President Bush on Monday, with the estimated 10-year cost of each item:
(AP) -- _Extend the $1,000 child tax credit through 2009. Cost: $61.57 billion.
_Extend marriage penalty relief through 2008. Cost: $15.69 billion.
_Extend the expanded 10 percent tax bracket through 2010. Cost: $29.36 billion.
_Extend relief from the alternative minimum tax for one year. Cost: $22.58 billion.
_Accelerate refundability of the child credit for low-income families for one year. Cost: $1.99 billion.
_Extend the corporate research and development tax credit until the end of 2005. Cost: $7.6 billion.
_Extend the authority to issue New York Liberty Zone bonds for development of lower Manhattan. Cost: $486 million.
_Extend tax incentives for investment in the District of Columbia. Cost: $522 million.
_Extend for one year a tax credit for the production of electricity from wind, biomass and poultry litter. Cost: $1.16 billion.
_Extend for one year a tax credit for qualified electric vehicles. Cost: $5 million.
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