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Post Says Bush Fails To Prove
Iraqi Terror Link

9-10-2


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Bush administration officials working to build a case against Saddam Hussein have been unable to establish a direct link between the Iraqi leader and global terrorism, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday.
 
Citing senior intelligence officials and other sources, the paper said the Central Intelligence Agency had yet to find convincing evidence of an Iraqi terror link despite redoubled efforts to collect and analyze information related to Iraq.
 
According to the report, analysts who have studied photographs, communications intercepts and information from informants concluded they could not validate allegations made by high-ranking U.S. officials of links between Saddam and al Qaeda members who would have taken refuge in northern Iraq.
 
Nor can the analysts confirm allegations of an April 2001 meeting in Prague between Mohamed Atta, the ringleader of the Sept. 11 hijackers and an Iraqi intelligence agent, it said.
 
"It's a thin reed," a senior intelligence official was quoted as saying in describing the information on both cases.
 
As a result of the CIA's conclusions, the Bush administration has accepted the notion that its stronger case against Iraq is Baghdad's pursuit of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, the Post said.
 
"At some point we will certainly make the case concerning Iraq and its links to terrorism," a senior administration official told the newspaper. "We still have to develop it more."
 
 
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