| MEDIA MYTHS VS. FACTS
MYTH #1: CIA ON IRAQ AL-QA'IDA RELATIONSHIP
Is it true that my Pentagon office claimed there was an Iraq-al Qaida relationship and that the CIA had determined there was not?
FACTS:
CIA Director George Tenet gave a public, written account of the Iraq-al Qaida relationship. (The key points of
Tenet's statement appear below.)
The disagreement between Pentagon and CIA officials was not over
whether such a relationship existed.
- The notion that my office was making up a relationship that had no intelligence
support is false.
- All in all, what my office was saying about the Iraq-al Qaida relationship was similar to what George
Tenet, Colin Powell and other officials were saying.
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Tenet's account was provided to the Senate Intelligence Committee in a letter dated October 7, 2002:
- "We have solid reporting of senior level contacts between Iraq and al-Qa'ida going back a decade."
- "Credible information indicates that Iraq and al-Qa'ida have discussed safe haven and reciprocal non-aggression."
- "Since Operation Enduring Freedom, we have solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of al-Qa'ida members, including
some that have been in Baghdad."
- "We have credible reporting that al-Qa'ida leaders sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire WMD capabilities.
The reporting also stated that Iraq has provided training to al-Qa'ida members in the areas of poisons and gases and
making conventional bombs."
- "Iraq's increasing support to extremist Palestinians, coupled with growing indications of a relationship with
al- Qa'ida, suggest that Baghdad's links to terrorists will increase, even absent US military action." 1
Tenet's account was influential in the Bush administration. Officials from every agency - including myself - accepted it. It had special credibility - at least as far as it went - because CIA and DIA analysts tended to deny or downplay information about Iraq-al Qaida connections. They favored a theory that the secular Baathists of the Saddam Hussein regime would not want links of any kind with the religious extremists of al Qaida. They would not acknowledge such links if they could possibly find a way to dismiss the underlying information. So the Tenet letter was seen as a grudging admission by those CIA and DIA analysts.
I accepted the Tenet letter as an important piece of common ground in a controversial field. I never criticized the letter in public or private. I think that was true of the President, Secretary Rumsfeld, Dr. Rice and other top officials too. From the time it was published, whenever we were asked about Iraq and al Qaida, top administration officials drew on the Tenet letter.
MORE ON IRAQ AL-QAIDA RELATIONSHIP
1George Tenet, Director of Central Intelligence, Letter to Sen. Bob Graham, Congressional Record, October 9, 2002,
p. S10154, available on Library of Congress website
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