Senate committee: Bush knew Iraq claims weren't true
"The committee found that the administration's warnings that former dictator Saddam Hussein was in league with Osama bin Laden, a highly inflammatory assertion in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, al Qaida attacks,
weren't substantiated by U.S. intelligence reports. In fact, it said, U.S. intelligence agencies were telling the White House that while there'd been sporadic contacts over a decade, there was no operational cooperation between Iraq and al Qaida, the report said.
The administration's repeated statements "suggesting that Iraq and al Qaida had a partnership, or that Iraq had provided al Qaida with weapons training,
were not substantiated by intelligence," it said."
"However, while intelligence reports "generally substantiated" their claims that Iraq had secretly restarted a nuclear weapons program, the committee said,
Bush and other officials failed to disclose that the State Department disputed that finding.
The administration's statements also failed to disclose that the Energy Department joined the State Department in rejecting allegations that Iraq had tried to buy uranium in Africa, the report said.
The reports released Thursday brought to an end a lengthy investigation into how U.S. intelligence appeared to be so wrong in the run-up to the Iraq war."
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Senate committee: Bush knew Iraq claims weren't true | McClatchy