• The thrust of this article by Jeffrey Smith is that the Pentagon (and Vice President Cheney) argued that there was substantial cooperation between Iraq and al Qaida while the CIA said there was not. That is a myth.

  • See Myth #1 in Media Myths vs. Facts.

• The myth is contradicted by the October 7, 2002 letter of CIA Director George Tenet to the Senate Intelligence Committee. That letter resolved the debate between my office and the CIA on this subject and summed up the CIA's position.
  • All the top administration officials relied on this important, unclassified letter.

  • In the letter, Tenet stated:

    • "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."

• Smith's article fails even to mention the Tenet letter, which obliterates the main point of the article.

• Similarly, Acting Inspector General Gimble neglects to quote the Tenet letter, though it was the most authoritative and influential statement of the "consensus of the intelligence community" on the Iraq-al Qaida relationship.

• The Tenet letter is also routinely ignored by Senator Levin and other war critics.

• The Tenet letter refutes the common misperception that there was no relationship between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and al Qaida.

• The Tenet letter also refutes the common mistake that only Cheney, Rumsfeld and their political-appointee staffs thought that there was an Iraq-al Qaida relationship.

SMITH GETS FACTS WRONG

• Smith misreports a key story
  • The factual story: In early 2002, a Defense policy analyst asked a Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) official to circulate old intelligence reports on the Iraq-al Qaida relationship. The DIA official refused, saying that circulating those reports would strengthen the hand of Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, who favored a hard line on Saddam Hussein.

  • Smith garbles this story. He says the policy analyst asked for the circulation of a paper she had written on the Iraq-al Qaida relationship. Not so. She asked for circulation of the intelligence community's own reports.

  • The significant point is that the DIA official opposed, for political reasons, the distribution of intelligence reports. In other words, intelligence officials were politicizing their work.

  • Under Secretary of Defense Eric Edelman gives the correct account in his comments on the draft IG report (see page 17 of the comments).

• In order to attack Cheney's credibility, Smith plays down the pre-war relationship between the terrorist Zarqawi and al Qaida. Smith describes Zarqawi at that time as "the leader of an unaffiliated terrorist group who occasionally associated with al Qaida adherents."
  • In fact, when Zarqawi was in Iraq before the war, the CIA referred to him variously as an important or close al Qaida operative, affiliate or associate.

  • CIA reports also noted that Zarqawi had not yet taken a pledge of loyalty to Usama bin Laden, but the CIA consistently stressed the close tie between Zarqawi and al Qaida.

  • Zarqawi, of course, became the head of al Qaida in Iraq after the overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime.

• Smith claims that the Weekly Standard published its famous story on Iraq and al Qaida "before the war." In fact, it was published a half-year after Saddam was overthrown.