CIAO DATE: 04/05

Questionable Claims: Powell Got It Wrong on the Connections between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda

Abstract

Secretary of State Powell's claims of an active link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda are based on faulty information.

Secretary of State Powell misrepresented the alleged terrorist training camp in northern Iraqi.

Powell claimed and presented a photograph showing that a "terrorist poison and explosives factory" is located in Khurmal, a Kurdish village near the Iranian border. Local Kurdish officials allied with the United States told the New York Times that no such camp exists at that location. A senior official of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), which receives financial assistance from the United States, said he had no information about the compound. A local administrator for the group that controls Khurmal said Powell's claim was "not true."

A few days after Powell's presentation, local Kurdish officials brought British journalists to the alleged site in the hamlet of Saryatt. The journalists reported no evidence of a chemical weapons or explosives camp. Said the London Observer: "the terrorist factory was nothing of the kind—more a dilapidated collection of concrete buildings. . . . There is no sign of chemical weapons anywhere."

The BBC reported seeing no obvious evidence of chemical weapons production. The site was "crawling with . . . gunmen but nothing more sinister than small arms was on display."

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