A U.S. soldier runs across a street in Baquba in front of a crater after U.S troops detonate a roadside bomb June 26, 2007 (Reuters
WASHINGTON: The CIA declassified a letter yesterday that suggests US intelligence had grave doubts about part of the case made by former president George W Bush’s White House to justify the war in Iraq.
In the run-up to the March 2003 invasion, officials, including then vice-president Dick Cheney, alleged that 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta had met an Iraqi spy in Prague before the attacks.
The alleged meeting was cited as evidence of a possible link between Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington. But, in a letter to Senator Carl Levin in March this year and now declassified, CIA Director John Brennan said field agents had “expressed significant concern” over the report.
The letter said US agents had not established Atta was in Prague, evidence suggest that he was not, at the time he was supposed to have met Iraqi agent Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir Al Ani. The letter was first reported by McClatchy newspapers.
Levin said he had asked the CIA to declassify the document to show how the Bush administration “misled” the country before the invasion of Iraq. Levin said the “alleged meeting was a centrepiece of the administration’s campaign to create an impression in the public mind that Saddam was in league with Al Qaeda terrorists who attacked us on 9/11.
“On multiple occasions, including national TV appearances, Cheney cited reports of the meeting, at one point calling it ‘pretty well confirmed,’” Levin said. AFP
