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'No Saddam link to Iraq al-Qaeda' | 'No Saddam link to Iraq al-Qaeda' |
(20 minutes later) | |
There is no evidence of formal links between Iraqi ex-leader Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda leaders in Iraq prior to the 2003 war, a US Senate report says. | |
The finding is contained in a 2005 CIA report released by the Senate's Intelligence Committee on Friday. | |
US President George W Bush has said that the presence of late al-Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq before the war was evidence of a link. | US President George W Bush has said that the presence of late al-Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq before the war was evidence of a link. |
Opposition Democrats say the report has harmed Mr Bush's case for going to war. | Opposition Democrats say the report has harmed Mr Bush's case for going to war. |
The BBC's Justin Webb in Washington says that the US president has again and again tried to connect the war in Iraq, which most Americans think was a mistake, with the so-called war on terror, which has the support of the nation. | |
The report comes as Mr Bush makes a series of speeches on the war on terror to coincide with the fifth anniversary of the 11 September 2001 attacks. | |
'Nothing new' | |
The committee concluded that the CIA had evidence of several instances of contacts between the Iraqi authorities and al-Qaeda throughout the 1990s but that these did not add up to a formal relationship. | |
It added that the government "did not have a relationship, harbour, or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi and his associates". | |
White House spokesman Tony Snow told the Associated Press news agency the report contained "nothing new". | |
"In 2002 and 2003, members of both parties got a good look at the intelligence we had and they came to the very same conclusions about what was going on," he said. | |
But Democrat Senator Carl Levin described the report as a "devastating indictment" of the administration's attempts to link Saddam Hussein to al-Qaeda. |