WASHINGTON - A top Democratic senator on Friday released formerly classified documents that he said undercut top US officials’ pre-Iraq war claims of a link between Saddam Hussein’s regime and the Al Qaeda terror network.
“These documents are additional compelling evidence that the Intelligence Community did not believe there was a cooperative relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda, despite public comments by the highest ranking officials in our government to the contrary,” said Senator Carl Levin.
The declassified documents undermine President George W. Bush’s administration claims regarding Iraq’s involvement in training Al Qaeda operatives and the likelihood of a meeting between September 11, 2001, hijacker Mohammed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in April 2001, Levin said in a statement.
In October 2002 Bush said: “We’ve learned that Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gasses.”
But a June 2002 CIA report, titled “Iraq and Al Qaeda: Interpreting a Murky Relationship,” said “the level and extent of this is assistance is not clear.
for a good timeline of our involvement in iraq:
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