Saddam’s pre-war ties to al-Qaeda discounted
Declassified Pentagon report says contacts were limited

By R. Jeffrey Smith
Updated: 2 hours, 35 minutes ago

Captured Iraqi documents and intelligence interrogations of Saddam Hussein and two former aides "all confirmed" that Hussein's regime was not directly cooperating with al-Qaeda before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, according to a declassified Defense Department report released yesterday.

The declassified version of the report, by acting Inspector General Thomas F. Gimble, also contains new details about the intelligence community's prewar consensus that the Iraqi government and al-Qaeda figures had only limited contacts, and its judgments that reports of deeper links were based on dubious or unconfirmed information. The report had been released in summary form in February.

More...

Meanwhile 3,266 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq in pursuit of weapons of mass destruction that didn't reallly exist. Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney are entirely responsible for unnecessary deaths of these American heroes. Both should be charged and tried for crimes against the American people.