Intelligence

Memo Exacerbates Defense-CIA Strains

Memo Exacerbates Defense-CIA Strains (washingtonpost.com)

Clues on Al Qaeda-Hussein Ties at Issue
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 20, 2003; Page A34
A leaked top-secret memo that Undersecretary of Defense Douglas J. Feith sent the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence last month listing and analyzing raw intelligence reports on alleged connections between Iraq and al Qaeda has reopened a long-simmering behind-the-scenes battle between Pentagon and CIA officials.

At issue is whether Defense Department analysts, who Feith organized in October 2001, have uncovered evidence that may have been missed or ignored by CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies that proved a closer operational relationship between Osama bin Laden's terrorist network and Saddam Hussein's government than believed.

The memo was put together in response to a request by the Senate committee chairman and vice chairman after Feith had told them in a closed hearing last July that intelligence reports discovered by his analysts "on the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda were not reflected in finished intelligence products" put out by the CIA and other agencies, according to senior administration officials and congressional sources.

The Feith memo, sent Oct. 27 to Capitol Hill, was first disclosed in the current edition of the Weekly Standard.

The article, written by Stephen F. Hayes, contains a section titled "Summary of Body of Intelligence Reporting on Iraq-al Qaeda Contacts (1990-2003)." In it, Hayes wrote that there are 50 items that include intelligence reporting and Pentagon comments or analyses that show "an operational relationship from the early 1990s to 2003 that involved training in explosives and weapons of mass destruction, logistical support for terrorist attacks, al Qaeda training camps and safe haven in Iraq."

One senior administration official familiar with CIA intelligence said yesterday that some of the material in the Feith memo was used in the agency's prewar summary of the al Qaeda-Iraq connections that was in an Oct. 7, 2002, letter sent to Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), then chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence. Graham made the letter public at that time.

In that letter CIA Director George J. Tenet reported about contacts between al Qaeda and Iraq going back a decade, "credible information" that there were discussions about giving the terrorists safe haven in Iraq, and "credible reporting" that al Qaeda sought help in acquiring chemical or biological weapons.

He added, however, that much of the material published by the Standard was raw intelligence reporting that in some cases "was questioned by other sources, comes from third countries that are not reliable or could not be verified."

A senior Pentagon official, seeking to defuse the differences with CIA, said yesterday that Feith was being responsive to the committee's questions but that "the U.S. government position on [the al Qaeda-Iraq connection] was articulated by George Tenet." He said the memo provided a list "and is not a new analysis or finding of any connection not previously existing." The CIA would not comment on the Standard article.

The CIA and the Senate committee have both asked the Justice Department to investigate the leak of the Feith memo. Yesterday, Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), the panel vice chairman, said, "This is an egregious leak of classified information that jeopardizes intelligence sources and risks damaging our ability to find and stop terrorists before they strike again."

Rockefeller also took issue with the Standard's assessment that the Feith memo proved a strong operational relationship existed between al Qaeda and Iraq before the war began last spring. "The intelligence community assessment was and continues to be that any connection between Iraq and al Qaeda is tenuous," Rockefeller said.

December 29, 2003 at 12:34 AM in CIA | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home