New
Book
Claims Bush White House Used Forged Documents In Case For Iraq War
By Yossi Melman, Haaretz Correspondent
05/08/08 "Haaretz" -- - The Bush administration used forged
documents that it presented as evidence of Saddam Hussein's
complicity in the September 11 terrorist attacks, and which were
later used as a pretext to launch the American invasion of Iraq
in March 2003, according to a newly released book by Pulitzer
Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind.
In "The Way of the World," Suskind writes that documents cited
by the administration allege that Hussein's regime permitted Al-Qaida
operatives who carried out the 9/11 attacks to train on Iraqi
soil, and that Saddam was seeking to obtain uranium in order to
manufacture weapons of mass destruction.
According to the book, the Central Intelligence Agency's
Directorate of Operations was responsible for fabricating the
documents. The book goes on to say that the British intelligence
agency MI6 recruited Saddam Hussein's intelligence chief, Tahir
Abd al-Jalil al-Tikriti, and questioned him in Amman two months
before the war, and then handed him over to the CIA.
Al-Tikriti continued to function as an agent for the Americans
until after the invasion, when he was taken into custody by the
U.S. military. His activities on behalf of the Americans
remained a well-guarded secret, as his name continued to appear
on a list of wanted members of Saddam's regime. The Americans
distributed decks of cards containing the names and pictures of
wanted Iraqi officials, among them al-Tikriti.
Months after the overthrow of the Ba'athist regime, al-Tikriti's
CIA handlers requested that he handwrite a letter on official
Iraqi government letterhead stating that Mohammed Atta, the
ringleader of the 9/11 hijackers, underwent training in Iraq
prior to carrying out the attacks, according to Suskind. In
addition, al-Tikriti wrote in the letter that Al-Qaida aided the
Iraqi government in obtaining uranium in Niger. It is worth
noting that evidence linking Saddam Hussein to Niger was
discredited after the source of the information, an Italian
informant, was discovered to have falsified his claims.
The CIA was quick to disseminate the letter to journalists in
Iraq, Britain, and the United States while creating the
impression that it was discovered in the Iraqi Foreign Ministry
archives by U.S. forces, Suskind writes. A short time later, the
British Daily Telegraph was one of the first newspapers to
publish the contents of the letter, which was touted as proof
that there indeed was a link between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaida,
and that the Iraqi leader was intent on developing weapons of
mass destruction. Other newspapers though were more skeptical of
the document's authenticity.
© Copyright 2008 Haaretz. All rights reserved
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