Senate Report: No Pre-War Link Between Hussein and al Qaeda

News:

Not that it will make any difference to neoconservative dead-enders, but a keenly anticipated Senate report released this afternoon confirms that there was no pre-war intelligence to suggest a relationship between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein’s government. That comes as part of two chapters of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s analysis of pre-war intelligence being released today, the rest of which will be delayed until well after the midterm elections. Today’s release includes a declassified October 2005 CIA assessment that Hussein’s government “did not have a relationship, harbor, or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi and his associates”, contradicting the Bush administration’s claims that Zarqawi’s presence ahead of the invasion was proof of an Iraq-al Qaeda link. White House spokesman Tony Snow quickly dismissed the report as “nothing new”. The full report—assuming the GOP ever allows it to see the light of day—contrasts the White House’s pre-war statements made in public with the intelligence it viewed in private.