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Friday, Sept. 27, 2002

Rumsfeld asked for permission to share the classified but still vague information a week ago, he said, leading to Rice's revelations Wednesday on PBS' "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer."

"We do have solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of al-Qaeda members, including some that have been in Baghdad," Rumsfeld said.

"We have what we consider to be very reliable reporting of senior-level contacts going back a decade, and of possible chemical- and biological-agent training .... The reports of these contacts have been increasing since 1998.

"We have what we believe to be credible information that Iraq and al-Qaeda have discussed safe haven opportunities in Iraq, reciprocal non-aggression discussions. We have what we consider to be credible evidence that al-Qaeda leaders have sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire weapon of mass destruction capabilities."

Exactly how solid the information is remains unclear.

"Some of it, admittedly, comes from detainees, which has been helpful, and particularly some high-ranking detainees," Rumsfeld said, referring to al-Qaeda members rounded up in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere.

He said he has "one report indicating that Iraq provided unspecified training relating to chemical and/or biological matters for al-Qaeda members. There is, I'm told, also some other information of varying degrees of reliability that supports that conclusion of their cooperation."

Rumsfeld later said the information he shared was based on more than one source. In any case, he repeated an assertion he makes often: that the stakes are too high to hold the evidence against Iraq up to the level of scrutiny that would be required in a court of law.

Puzzle

"It is the task of taking these disparate pieces and putting them together so that people can make their own judgment, not for us to prove anything," Rumsfeld said.

At the White House, press secretary Ari Fleischer echoed those same words:

"We know that al-Qaeda have found refuge in Iraq. There is credible reporting that al-Qaeda leaders sought contacts in Iraq to acquire chemical and other weapons of mass destruction capabilities."

Perle's Testimony

Rumsfeld's comments came the same day one of his senior independent advisers, Richard Perle, chairman of the Defense Policy Board, testified to the House Armed Services Committee on his view of the way ahead in Iraq.

Perle's view, considered by some a spyglass into the Pentagon's inner workings, because of his position and longstanding association with Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, is that U.N. inspections of Iraq's weapons programs run the risk of being counterproductive.

If they fail to turn up evidence of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, it will be according to Perle, because Hussein has become so adept at hiding them. But the damage will be done: no one in the world would then accept a U.S. military strike on Iraq to "disarm him by other means," Perle said.

Perle believes the U.N. inspection team would have to be composed of "tens of thousands" of inspectors if it is to be successful, not the 300 experts listed on the U.N. roster.

"You couldn't find a nuclear weapon properly hidden in this building with an inspection force the size of the U.N.'s," Perle told United Press International.

Perle envisions an invasion of Iraq backed by the opposition forces that he says have strongly united behind the Iraqi National Congress, "liberating the people," followed by assisting in the rebuilding of the country.

"I think then the world will see the U.S. has not acted simply in its own behalf but in the interests of the Iraqi people," Perle said.

Clark's Testimony

Also testifying at the hearing was retired Supreme Allied Commander-Europe Gen. Wesley Clark. Clark came down firmly on the side of inspections, if only to prove to the world that the United States values multilateral action. With that point made, the world could then be expected to back the United States if it felt a war with Iraq is necessary to disarm Saddam.

"There are unintentional consequences when force is used," Clark said. "Use it multilaterally if you can. Use it unilaterally only if you must," he said.

Contradicting the Bush administration, Clark insisted "time is on our side," and it is time that is needed to plan for a post-Saddam Iraq.

Rushing into a strike, almost certain to be won in as little as two weeks, means the Bush administration must be prepared to deal with the chaos that will ensue in the country afterward. U.S. troops will have to be stationed in Baghdad to help keep order - and might not be welcomed.

"We have to imagine a complete breakdown of order," he said. "In the case of Iraq we are going to be infidels in a Muslim land .... And we're not going to be enforcing Islamic law."

Though Hussein now represents a short-term "operational" problem, al-Qaeda is a the United States' long term "strategic problem," he said.

A Worse Replacement?

It is possible, he warned, that Hussein will be succeeded by an anti-American Islamic fundamentalist regime, along the lines of Iran and ascribing to the same beliefs as al-Qaeda.

"We [might] remove a repressive regime and have it replaced with a fundamentalist regime, which contributes to the strategic problem," Clark said.

In Iraq Wednesday, U.S. military jets enforcing the southern "no-fly" zone bombed two air defense sites, including one at al Basra, 245 miles southeast of Baghdad, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Peter Pace said Thursday. That targeting radar was on a joint military-civilian airfield. Pace said it was well away from civilian installations.

Iraq claimed civilians were killed in the attack. Rumsfeld flatly rejected that assertion and upbraided the press for reporting the claim.

Copyright 2002 by United Press International.

All rights reserved.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:

Al-Qaeda

Bush Administration

Middle East

Saddam Hussein/Iraq

War on Terrorism

Editor's note:
Saddam Hussein’s race to make a nuclear bomb