Pentagon: Prewar intel on Al Qaeda-Hussein link not illegal but 'dubious'

But in a statement released Thursday, Sen. Rockefeller stuck by his charges.

"Individuals in that office produced and disseminated intelligence products outside of the regular intelligence channels. These intelligence products were inconsistent with the consensus judgments of the Intelligence Community. This office did this without coordinating with the Intelligence Community and as a result policy-makers received distorted intelligence."

The Associated Press reports that Feith, while glad that his office's actions were found not to be illegal, strongly disagreed that some of them were, however, inappropriate.

"The policy office has been smeared for years by allegations that its pre-Iraq-war work was somehow 'unlawful' or 'unauthorized' and that some information it gave to congressional committees was deceptive or misleading," Feith said.

Feith called "bizarre" the inspector general's conclusion that some intelligence activities by the Office of Special Plans, which was created while Feith served as the undersecretary of defense for policy - the top policy position under then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld - were inappropriate but not unauthorized.

"Clearly, the inspector general's office was willing to challenge the policy office and even stretch some points to be able to criticize it," Feith said, adding that he felt this amounted to subjective "quibbling" by the IG.

McClatchy Newspapers reports that in a response to an earlier draft of Mr. Gimble's report, Eric Edelman, Feith's successor and a former aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, said Feith had received instructions from then Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz to ignore the findings of the intelligence community that Mr. Hussein and Al Qaeda were "unlikely allies."

Feith's unit gave three different briefings on its findings, according to Edelman's response. The one for Rumsfeld, in August 2002, cited "one indication of Iraqi coordination with al-Qaeda specifically related to 9/11." One the same month for senior CIA officials cited "one possible indication of Iraqi coordination with Al Qaeda specifically related to 9/11." The third version, given to the White House in September 2002, cited "some indications of possible Iraqi coordination with Al Qaeda specifically related to 9/11."

None of the versions, however, was an "assessment of any sort," as the inspector general concluded, the DOD rebuttal says.

McClatchy also reports that Feith's unit cited as one of its strongest piece of evidence of this relationship "a purported April 2001 meeting in the Czech capital of Prague between a senior Iraqi intelligence officer and Mohammed Atta, who led the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon several months later." The CIA and the FBI later concluded that the meeting never took place, but as late as 2004, Mr. Cheney was still citing this finding as evidence of an Al Qaeda and Iraqi link.

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