US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said on Monday that he had seen no "strong, hard evidence" linking former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda, though he tempered his comment by noting that stark disagreements on the issue remained among US intelligence analysts.
"I have seen the answer to that question migrate in the intelligence community over the period of a year in the most amazing way," Rumsfeld said when asked about ties between Saddam and the terror network run by Osama bin Laden.
Senior administration officials cited the existence of ties between them as a rationale for war on Iraq.
"Second, there are differences in the intelligence community as to what the relationship was," Rumsfeld said at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. "To my knowledge, I have not seen any strong, hard evidence that links the two."
Relationships among terrorists and terrorist networks are complicated to track, Rumsfeld said, because "in many cases, they cooperate not in a chain of command but in a loose affiliation, a franchising arrangement almost."
He said that even Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born terrorist leader blamed for some of the most violent attacks inside Iraq since the end of major combat operations, probably had no formal allegiance to Osama bin Laden, although "they're just two peas in a pod in terms of what they're doing."
The extent of Iraq's ties to al-Qaeda has been subjected to intense and often contentious scrutiny, especially this campaign season. While Rumsfeld has frequently cited CIA reports of murky ties, including the presence of al-Qaeda operatives in Iraq, he has not been as adamant on the issue as other senior administration officials, in particular Vice President Dick Cheney.
"There is no question but that there have been interactions between the Iraqi government, Iraqi officials, and al-Qaeda operatives," Rumsfeld said in November 2002.
"They have occurred over a span of some eight or 10 years to our knowledge. There are currently al-Qaeda in Iraq."
But even when discussing intelligence pointing to Iraq-al-Qaeda links, Rumsfeld has noted the absence of certainty.
In September 2002, he warned that it was not always possible for the government to satisfy a public desire for "some hard evidence" of Iraq's ties to terrorist networks.
"We have to face that fact that we're not going to have everything beyond a reasonable doubt," Rumsfeld said.
In his speech on Monday, Rumsfeld also gave an impassioned defense of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf for his actions in support of the military effort to topple the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and for serving as a voice of moderation in the Muslim world.
In particular, Rumsfeld said, Musharraf should not be criticized for pardoning Abdul Qadeer Khan, the former head of Pakistan's nuclear laboratories who operated a secret network to sell nuclear equipment and skill abroad.
LEVERAGE: China did not ‘need to fire a shot’ to deny Taiwan airspace over Africa when it owns ‘half the continent’s debt,’ a US official said, calling it economic warfare The EU has raised concerns about overflight rights following the delay of President William Lai’s (賴清德) planned state visit to the Kingdom of Eswatini after three African nations denied overflight clearance for his charter at the last minute. Taiwanese allies Paraguay and Saint Kitts and Nevis, as well as several US lawmakers and the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) condemned China for allegedly pressuring the countries. Lai was scheduled to fly directly to Taiwan’s only African ally from yesterday to Sunday to celebrate the 40th anniversary of King Mswati III’s accession and his 58th birthday, but Seychelles, Mauritius and Madagascar suddenly revoked
The final batch of 28 M1A2T Abrams tanks purchased from the US arrived at Taipei Port last night and were transported to the Armor Training Command in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), completing the military’s multi-year procurement of 108 of the tanks. Starting at 12:10am today, reporters observed more than a dozen civilian flatbed trailers departing from Taipei Port, each carrying an M1A2T tank covered with black waterproof tarps. Escorted by military vehicles, the convoy traveled via the West Coast Expressway to the Armor Training Command, with police implementing traffic control. The army operates about 1,000 tanks, including CM-11 Brave Tiger
China on Wednesday teased in a video an aircraft carrier that could be its fourth, and the first using nuclear power, while making an allusion to Taiwan and vowing to further build up its islands, as it looks to boost maritime power, secure resources and bolster territorial claims. The video, issued on the eve of the 77th founding anniversary of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy, featured fictional officers with names that are homophones of three commissioned aircraft carriers, the Liaoning (遼寧), Shandong (山東) and Fujian (福建). Titled Into the Deep, it showed a 19-year-old named “Hejian” (何劍) joining the group, sparking
BIG YEAR: The company said it would also release its A12 chip the same year to keep a ‘reliable stream of new silicon technologies’ flowing to its customers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said its newest A13 chip is to enter volume production in 2029 as the chipmaker seeks to hold onto its tech leadership and demand for next-generation chips used in artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance-computing (HPC) and mobile applications. TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, also unveiled its A12 chip at its annual technology symposium in Santa Clara, California. The A12 chip, which features TSMC’s super-power-rail technology to provide backside power delivery for AI and HPC applications, is also to enter volume production in 2029, a year after the scheduled release of the A14 chip. The technology moves
RSS