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Wolfowitz:
Iraq Was Not Involved In 9-11 Terrorist Attacks, No Ties To Al-Qaeda
by
Jason Leopold
August
7, 2003
Deputy
Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, one of the main architects for the war in
Iraq, admitted for the first time that Iraq had nothing to do with the
September 11 terrorist attacks, contradicting public statements made by senior
White House and Pentagon officials whose attempt to link Saddam Hussein and the
terrorist organization al-Qaeda was cited by the Bush administration as one of
the main reasons for launching a preemptive strike in March against Iraq.
In
an interview with conservative radio personality Laura Ingraham, Wolfowitz was
asked when he first came to believe that Iraq was behind the 9-11 terrorist
attacks.
“I’m
not sure even now that I would say Iraq had something to do with it,” Wolfowitz
said in the interview, aired Friday, a transcript of which can be found at http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2003/tr20030801-depsecdef0526.html
Wolfowitz’s
answer confirms doubts long held by critics of the Iraq war that the Bush
administration had no evidence linking Iraq to 9-11 or al-Qaeda, but simply
used the horrific terrorist attacks as a reason to overthrow Saddam Hussein and
his Baathist regime.
“I
think what the realization to me is -- the fundamental point was that terrorism
had reached the scale completely different from what we had thought of it up
until then. And that it would only get worse when these people got access to
weapons of mass destruction which would be only a matter of time,” Wolfowitz said
in the interview. “…What you really got to do is, eliminate terrorist networks
and eliminate terrorism as a problem. And clearly Iraq was one of the country
-- you know top of the list of countries actively using terrorism as an
instrument of national policy.”
Since
the United States invaded Iraq 111 days ago, no chemical or biological weapons
have been found in the country.
A
spokesman for Wolfowitz would not return repeated calls for comment.
During
the buildup to the war in Iraq, the Bush administration successfully convinced
the public and members of Congress that Iraq had played some role in the 9-11
terrorist attacks, according to numerous polls that showed a majority of the
American public believe Iraq was involved in 9-11 attacks, despite the absence
of evidence to support the allegations.
Secretary
of Defense Donald Rumsfeld last year boasted that the Pentagon and CIA had
“bulletproof” evidence linking Iraq to al-Qaeda, although Rumsfeld refused to
declassify any of the intelligence he had to support his claims. Shortly after
the attacks, however, the administration claimed that Mohammed Atta, the
suspected ringleader of the 9-11 attacks, met with an Iraqi agent in Prague in
early 2001, suggesting a possible connection with Saddam Hussein.
Reports
of the meeting were based primarily on accounts of Czech officials like Prime
Minister Milos Zeman, who discussed it with officials in Washington in
November. But
Federal
law-enforcement officials concluded in May that no such meeting took place.
Since
Bush declared in May an end to major combat in Iraq, Wolfowitz has given
numerous interviews contradicting the administrations rationale for starting
the war. Most notably, Wolfowitz told a reporter for Vanity Fair a few months
ago that: “the decision to highlight weapons of mass destruction as the main
justification for going to war in Iraq was taken for bureaucratic reasons....”
But
despite the obvious contradictions about the reasons cited for war and
unanswered questions as to whether the Bush administration manipulated
intelligence to build a stronger case for striking Iraq, the president and his
senior staff maintains that the war was justified.
But
Democrats in Congress, a majority of who supported a resolution authorizing the
use of military force to overthrow Saddam Hussein, said they are particularly
interested in questioning Wolfowitz and other Pentagon officials about its use
of intelligence information that critics claim the Pentagon hyped to show Iraq
not only played a part in 9-11, but that the country had a stockpile of
chemical and biological weapons that it planned to use against the U.S.
Republican
lawmakers, however, in an attempt to protect the White House from further
embarrassment about the accuracy of its use of prewar intelligence, are
thwarting efforts by Democrats to launch such a probe.
At
issue is a secret Pentagon committee headed by Wolfowitz and Undersecretary of
Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, that is widely believed to be responsible for
gathering much of the erroneous intelligence information used by President Bush
and senior White House officials on the so-called Iraqi threat, specifically,
its ties to al-Qaeda.
The
Pentagon unit, called the Office of Special Plans, was formed, according to
published reports, after the 9-11 terrorist attacks to find links between Iraq
and al-Qaeda. It was disbanded late last year, Feith said during a briefing
with reporters in May. About a dozen former CIA intelligence officials have
been quoted as saying that the Office of Special Plans cherry-picked
intelligence, much of which was gathered by unreliable Iraqi defectors, to make
a stronger case for war and delivered directly to Vice President Dick Cheney’s
office and National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice without first being vetted
by the CIA.
Congressman
David Obey, D-Wisconsin, is planning on writing a letter to the General
Accounting Office sometime this week urging the agency to immediately launch an
inquiry into the group to find out if Wolfowitz and his underlings in the
Special Plans Office knowingly manipulated intelligence to help the White House
win support for a war in Iraq.
Jason Leopold, formerly the bureau chief of Dow Jones Newswires, is a
freelance journalist based in California. He is currently finishing a book on
the California energy crisis. He can be contacted at jasonleopold@hotmail.com.
* White
House Said In January It Used Info From Iraqi Exiles In Bush’s State of the
Union Speech
* CIA
Probe Finds Secret Pentagon Group Manipulated Intelligence on Iraqi Threat
* Tenet
Tells Senators Wolfowitz Committee Gave White House Dubious Intelligence
* Wolfowitz
Committee Told White House to Hype Dubious Uranium Claims
* “The Road to
Hell is Paved With Good Intentions”
* CIA
Warned White House Last Oct. That Iraq/Uranium Claims Based On Forged Documents
* Wolfowitz
Aimed to Undermine Blix So US Could Strike Iraq
* White
House Silenced Experts Who Questioned Iraq Intel Info Six Months Before War
* Powell Denies
Intelligence Failure
* The Iraq War Was
Always Based On Shaky Evidence and Bad Intel
* Wolfowitz
Admits Iraq War Was Planned Two Days After 9/11
* Despite Thin
Intelligence Reports, US Plans To Overthrow Iranian Regime
* Cheney’s
Old Company Continues To Break Laws While Profiting From Terror
* FERC and Wall
Street: Conversations May Have Violated Federal Law