CIA finds no proof in Saddam-Qaeda link
MIL, Oct 6, 2004. Junior Reporter
A new assessment by CIA finds no proof to the claim that Iraq's deposed leader Saddam Hussein offered safe haven to Abu Mussab Zarqawi, a Jordanian extremist linked to Al-Qaeda, before the war, a US official said. "Amalgamation of the new information and the reassessment suggest the relationship was not as previously described," said the US official on the condition of anonimity. "But I want to stress the point that this conclution is not concrete." The reappraisal, based on a mix of new information plus a reassessment of old intelligence, questions US rationales for invading Iraq that underscored alleged links between Saddam and Al-Qaeda. US President George W Bush and other top administration officials have contended that Zarqawi's presence in Baghdad before the war was the best evidence of Saddam's links to Al-Qaeda. Knight Ridder newspapers, which first disclosed the new assessment, said the new information included the arrests in 2002 and 2003 of three Zarqawi associates by the regime.