October 27, 2005

More fabricated intelligence the Bush administration cited to justify invading Iraq, the alleged al Qaeda-Saddam connection. Newsweek reports:

. . . In the months after U.S. and allied forces deposed Saddam, NEWSWEEK has learned, Iraqi informants approached U.S. intelligence personnel with what purported to be caches of documents proving that Saddam's dealings with Al Qaeda were extensive. (One cache of documents even claimed that six of 19 of the September 11 hijackers had been trained to fly in Iraq.)

Current and former U.S. counterterrorism officials said that when officials at the Bush White House learned about the existence of documents linking Saddam to Al Qaeda, they became very excited and pressured intelligence agencies to work quickly to validate and decipher them. However, the CIA ultimately established that most key documents about the Saddam-Al Qaeda connection turned over were faked—just like the documents purporting to show Iraqi purchases of uranium...

Perhaps we'll learn more about it in the long, long awaited Senate Intelligence committee Phase II report! Or, maybe not.

Posted by Laura at October 27, 2005 01:43 PM