This article originally provided by The New York Times

Also see below: Sept. 11 Panel Repeats Iraq - Osama Tie Weak

July 6, 2004

Cheney Had No New Data on Saddam, Al Qaeda - Panel

    By Reuters

    Tuesday 06 July 2004

    Washington - The Sept. 11 commission, which reported no evidence of collaborative links between Iraq and al Qaeda, said on Tuesday that Vice President Dick Cheney had no more information than commission investigators to support his later assertions to the contrary.

    The 10-member bipartisan panel investigating the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington said it reached its conclusion after reviewing available transcripts of Cheney's public remarks on the subject.

    The vice president has asserted long-standing links between the former Iraqi president and Osama Bin Laden's Islamist militant network.

    "The 9-11 Commission believes it has access to the same information the vice president has seen regarding contacts between al Qaeda and Iraq prior to the 9-11 attacks," the commission said in a statement.

    Neither commission Chairman Thomas Kean nor Vice Chairman Lee Hamilton were available to elaborate on their panel's statement.

    Cheney spokesman Kevin Kellems denied any conflict between the commission's finding of no Saddam/al Qaeda relationship and the vice president's position. He described Cheney as being "pleased" about the commission's statement and said the message "put to rest a non-story.

    "As we have said all along, the administration provided the commission with unprecedented access to sensitive information so they could perform their mission," said Kellems, who noted that the commission's report was a draft.

    "We look forward to reading the commission's final report," he added.

    Al Qaeda is blamed for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that killed about 3,000 people and prompted President Bush to launch his war on terrorism with an invasion that ousted Afghanistan's former Taliban regime.

    No weapons, Al Qaeda ties found
    Assertions that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and could be prepared to provide chemical or biological agents to al Qaeda for attacks on the United States were a main justification for Bush's decision to invade and occupy Iraq.

    No such weapons have been found, and recent opinion polls have suggested growing public skepticism about the Bush administration's reasons for launching a war in which 870 U.S. soldiers have died and nearly 5,400 have been wounded.

    The commission called White House claims about links between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda into question on June 11, with a staff report that found no evidence of a collaborative relationship between the Iraqi leader and al Qaeda leading up to the attacks.

    But Bush and his top aides stood firm, with Cheney forcefully maintaining that evidence depicting an Iraqi role in the Sept. 11 attacks may yet emerge.

    "The notion that there is no relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda just simply is not true," Cheney said in an interview with CNBC in which the vice president also suggested he might have more information than the panel.

    The New York Times later reported Kean and Hamilton hoped to see any additional information Cheney had on the subject.

    As part of the White House response to the Sept. 11 commission's report, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said she believed the panel was actually denying Saddam had control over al Qaeda. Kean and Hamilton flatly rejected her interpretation.

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    Sept. 11 Panel Repeats Iraq - Osama Tie Weak

    The Associated Press

    Tuesday 06 July 2004

    Washington - The Sept. 11 commission is standing by its finding that al-Qaida had only limited contact with Iraq before the terrorist attacks, a determination disputed by Vice President Dick Cheney.

    The 10-member, bipartisan panel issued a one-sentence statement Tuesday saying it had access to the same information as Cheney, who suggested strong ties between ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida.

    Those ties were a central justification the Bush administration gave for going to war with Iraq and were called into question after the commission released a preliminary report last month. The report cited contacts between Saddam's regime and Osama bin Laden but said there was no "collaborative relationship."

    Cheney questioned the commission's finding in an interview with CNBC and said there "probably" was information about Iraq's links to terrorists that the commission members did not learn during their 14-month investigation. The commission statement disputed that.

    "After examining available transcripts of the vice president's public remarks, the 9/11 commission believes it has access to the same information the vice president has seen regarding contacts between al-Qaida and Iraq prior to the 9/11 attacks," the commission said.

    The commission invited Cheney to offer any evidence that he thought it didn't have but never received any information.

    Cheney's spokesman, Kevin Kellems, said on Tuesday the vice president was satisfied the panel had all relevant information to make an accurate determination. Cheney's main concern was about some media reports suggesting that al-Qaida and Iraq had no ties whatsoever, he said.

    "We are pleased with today's statement from the 9-11 commission, which puts to rest a non-story," Kellems said. "As we have said all along, the administration has provided the commission with unprecedented access to sensitive information so they can perform their mission."

    The commission, which faces a July 26 deadline to issue its final report, is winding down its 1 1/2 year investigation into what went wrong and why.

    Commissioners already have submitted substantial portions of the report to the White House for review and are meeting this week to hash out recommendations into how to prevent future attacks. Proposals under consideration include creating a domestic intelligence agency modeled after Britain's MI5.