US News
US Senate probe sees no prewar WMD, al-Qaeda threat from Iraq
By DPA
Sep 8, 2006, 19:00 GMT

Washington - Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and Saddam Hussein had no substantial links with al-Qaeda before the 2003 US-led invasion, a US Senate report said Friday.

The Senate intelligence committee's investigation broadly debunked the key reasons that US President George W Bush cited before going to war in Iraq, bolstering findings in a July 2004 report by the panel.

Bush has acknowledged that prewar intelligence was faulty, but insists that the continuing fighting in Iraq is now the 'central front' in the war on terrorism.

The Senate report said there was no evidence before the war that Iraq was working on nuclear weapons, had biological or chemical arms or had built mobile chemical weapons labs.

The panel cited numerous examples in which US intelligence misjudged the prewar situation in Iraq or was misled by sources who provided information later exposed as false.

The report also confirmed an earlier investigation that found virtually no evidence of contact between the al-Qaeda terrorist network and Saddam when he was in power.

'No postwar information suggests that the Iraqi regime attempted to facilitate a relationship with bin Laden,' the 151-page report said. In fact, it said, evidence indicates 'that Saddam issued a general order that Iraq should not deal with al-Qaeda.'

Released less than two months before US congressional elections, the report could provide fodder for the opposition Democrats, who hope to capitalize on slumping public support of the war.