The Scum at the Top
Commentary on the Rats in Washington
White House denies fake Iraq-al-Qaida link letter
By Brett J. Blackledge
AP News/Excite
© August 5, 2008
WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House and the CIA on Tuesday
adamantly denied a report that the Bush administration
concocted a fake letter purporting to show a link between
Saddam Hussein's regime and al-Qaida as a justification
for the Iraq war.
The allegation was raised by Washington-based journalist
Ron Suskind in a new book, "The Way of the World,"
published Tuesday. The letter supposedly was written
by Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti, director of Iraqi
intelligence under Saddam Hussein.
"The White House had concocted a fake letter from
Habbush to Saddam, backdated to July 1, 2001," Suskind
wrote. "It said that 9/11 ringleader Mohammad Atta had
actually trained for his mission in Iraq thus showing,
finally, that there was an operational link between
Saddam and al-Qaida, something the vice president's
office had been pressing CIA to prove since 9/11 as a
justification to invade Iraq. There is no link."
Suskind said the letter's existence had been reported
before, and that it had been treated as if it were genuine.
Denying the report, White House deputy press secretary
Tony Fratto said, "The notion that the White House directed
anyone to forge a letter from Habbush to Saddam Hussein
is absurd."
Fratto and former CIA Director George Tenet also rejected
Suskind's allegation that the U.S. had credible intelligence,
before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, that Saddam did not possess
weapons of mass destruction. It was supposedly British
intelligence, based on information from a senior Iraqi official.
Fratto said U.S. and other intelligence agencies believed
Saddam harbored such weapons and that Saddam had tried to
make his neighbors believe he had them. In the end, no
such weapons were found, undercutting Bush's main reason
to go to war.
"We know now that those estimates were wrong, but they
were the estimates we all relied on," Fratto said.
"Regardless, military force in Iraq was used because
Saddam Hussein defiantly failed to comply with the 17
UN Security Council resolutions Iraq was subject to."
Tenet, in a statement distributed by the White House,
also issued a denial about the supposedly fake letter.
"There was no such order from the White House to me nor,
to the best of my knowledge, was anyone from CIA ever
involved in any such effort," he said.
"It is well established that, at my direction, CIA resisted
efforts on the part of some in the administration to paint
a picture of Iraqi-al-Qaida connections that went beyond
the evidence," Tenet said. "The notion that I would suddenly
reverse our stance and have created and planted false
evidence that was contrary to our own beliefs is ridiculous."
Suskind told The Associated Press that the criticism from
the White House and Tenet were expected. He said Tenet
"is not credible on this issue" and the White House "is
all but obligated to deny this."
"If they go in the other direction, I think they're
probably going to have to start firing people," Suskind
said.
In his book, Suskind writes that Tenet gave Rob Richer,
the CIA's former head of the Near East division and deputy
director of clandestine operations, the fake letter during
a fall 2003 meeting. Suskind quotes Richer as saying,
"George said something like, 'Well, Marine, I've got a
job for you, though you may not like it.'"
Suskind wrote that "Richer remembers looking down at the
creamy White House stationery on which the assignment was
written." He quotes Richer as saying, "This was creating a
deception."
Suskind also quotes John Maquire, who oversaw the CIA's Iraq
Operations Group, about the alleged fake letter. "When it
was discussed with me, I just thought it was incredible, a
box-checking of all outstanding issues in one letter, from
one guy," Suskind quotes Maquire as saying.
Richer and Maquire, who both left the CIA in recent years,
could not be reached Tuesday for comment about the book.
Tenet also challenged Suskind's assertion that the U.S.
ignored intelligence that Saddam did not have weapons of
mass destruction.
"As Mr. Suskind tells it," Tenet said, "the White House
directed (and CIA allegedly went along with) burying that
information so that the war could go ahead as planned. This
is a complete fabrication. In fact, the source in question
failed to persuade his British interlocutors that he had
anything new to offer by way of intelligence, concessions,
or negotiations with regard to the Iraq crisis and the
British on their own elected to break off contact with him."
Tenet said, "There were many Iraqi officials who said
both publicly and privately that Iraq had no WMD but our
foreign intelligence colleagues and we assessed that these
individuals were parroting the Baath party line and trying
to delay any coalition attack. The particular source that
Suskind cites offered no evidence to back up his assertion
and acted in an evasive and unconvincing manner."
Suskind wrote that Habbush first told British intelligence
agent Michael Shipster in January 2003 that invading forces
would not find the weapons in Iraq.
"After being told that Habbush had said there were no
WMD, Bush was frustrated," Suskind wrote in the book,
quoting Bush telling an aide, "Why don't they ask him
to give us something we can use to help us make our case?"
Suskind quotes Richer as saying Habbush's information was
disregarded by an administration determined to invade.
Associated Press Writers Terence Hunt and Pamela Hess
contributed to this report.
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Last Modified:
September 21, 2008