9/11 Panel: No Qaeda-Iraq Link

'No Credible Evidence' Of Ties Cited By Cheney & Other Officials

(CBS/AP)  The commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks reported Wednesday that Osama bin Laden met with a top Iraqi official in 1994 but found "no credible evidence" of a link between Iraq and al Qaeda in attacks against the United States.

In a report based on research and interviews by the commission staff, the panel said that bin Laden explored possible cooperation with Saddam Hussein even though he opposed the Iraqi leader's secular regime.

The report comes as the Sept. 11 commission begins its final two days of hearings, covering the emergency response by the Federal Aviation Administration and U.S. air defenses.

In making the case for war in Iraq, Bush administration officials frequently cited what they said were Saddam's decade-long contacts with al Qaeda operatives. They stopped short of claiming that Iraq was directly involved in the Sept. 11 attacks but critics say Mr. Bush officials left that impression with the American public.

In recent days, administration officials have reiterated their claims of a link.

Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday at a reception in Florida that Saddam "had long established ties with al Qaeda."

Asked about Cheney's comments on Tuesday, President Bush pointed to Abu Musab al Zarqawi, a terrorist seen behind many recent attacks in Iraq, as "the best evidence of connection to al Qaeda affiliates and al Qaeda."

Both Mr. Bush and Cheney also referred to Saddam's harboring terrorist Abu Nidal and paying the families of Palestinian suicide bombers.

The Sept. 11 commission report said that a senior Iraqi intelligence official reportedly met with bin Laden in 1994 in Sudan, and bin Laden "is said to have requested space to establish training camps, as well as assistance in procuring weapons, but Iraq apparently never responded."

"There have been reports that contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda also occurred after bin Laden had returned to Afghanistan, but they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship," the report said. "Two senior Bin Laden associates have adamantly denied that any ties existed between al Qaeda and Iraq."

The commission, facing a July 26 deadline for a final report, is winding down its 1 1/2-year investigation after interviewing more than 1,000 witnesses, including Mr. Bush, and reviewing more than 2 million documents.

Among the expected findings in this week's hearings: The nation's air defense was woefully outdated, focused more on intercepting Soviet bombers than hijacked airliners.

Officials have acknowledged the fighters did not get airborne as quickly as possible. NORAD and FAA officials say that since Sept. 11 they have established new chains of communication and increased the number of warplanes on alert.

According to The New York Times, a draft of the commission's report finds that: "On the morning of 9/11, the existing protocol was unsuited in every respect for what was about to happen. What ensued was a hurried attempt to create an improvised defense by officials who had never encountered or trained against the situation they faced."

The Times reports the commission will seek to learn the impact of Mr. Bush's delay in leaving a Florida school after hearing of the attacks. Cheney's order to shoot down the hijacked planes did not reach pilots until the fourth plane had already crashed.

"We'll be looking at the timeline as to whether or not we had an opportunity to deflect any of the airliners, and how decisions were made by the highest people in government," commissioner Timothy Roemer said.

Several commissioners have told The Associated Press that drafts of the final report detail the many communication gaps and missteps by FBI and intelligence officials in detecting the plot. But they said the drafts refrain from placing blame on individuals in the Bush and Clinton administrations to avoid charges of partisanship.

That troubles some relatives of Sept. 11 victims.

"What happened on that day? What did the president know?" Lorie Van Auken, whose husband Kenneth was killed in the attacks, asked. "When everything went wrong, we don't need to hear commissioners telling witnesses they did a great job."

In the report released Wednesday, the commission addressed — and in some case dismissed — other popular conceptions about al Qaeda.

For example, bin Laden never personally bankrolled al Qaeda. He never had access to his family $300 million fortune and his personal business holdings never generated adequate profits.

Qaeda had to raise its own money. But there is no evidence, the commission said, that the Saudi government was complicit in funding al Qaeda, although substantial private donations appear to have come from Saudi charities.

There is also no evidence al Qaeda receives substantial income from trade in illegal drugs or in diamonds from Africa.

Al Qaeda's relationship to particular attacks is also complicated.

The group funded attacks on U.S. troops in Somalia in 1993, and actively orchestrated the 1998 Africa Embassy and 200 USS Cole bombings, but played only a supporting role in the Millennium plot against Los Angeles airport.

It remains unclear if the organization was tied to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the 1995 Manila airline bombing plot or the 1996 Khobar Towers attack are murky.

While more than 20,000 men may have trained in al Qaeda camps, only a select few actually received terrorist training, the report found. The rest obtained only conventional military training to assist insurgencies in Afghanistan, Chechnya and Kashmir.

The commission found that since Sept. 11 and the onset of the U.S. war on terrorism, the commission found, al Qaeda has become decentralized, with bin Laden yielding operational control to local commanders.

The group faces fundraising challenges, but conducting terrorism is relatively cheap: Salaries and other administrative expenses are a larger drain on the budget than attacks.

But al Qaeda "remains extremely interested in conducting chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear attacks."

And U.S. intelligence "expects that the trend toward attacks intended to cause ever higher casualties will continue," the report said.