NEWS: CIA: No Iraqi officer link in al-Qaida meeting

CIA: No Iraqi officer link in al-Qaida meeting
Commissioner John Lehman, who was Navy secretary under Ronald Reagan, said "new ... documents" indicated that "at least one officer of Saddam's Fedayeen," an elite army unit, "was a very prominent member of al-Qaida."

Lehman's remarks on NBC's "Meet the Press" lent support to the Bush administration's insistence that there were strong ties between Hussein and al-Qaida.

The administration official said the CIA and U.S. Army obtained the lists of members of the Fedayeen shortly after the invasion of Iraq last year. Some, he said, had names "similar to" Ahmad Hikmat Shakir. But, he said, the CIA had concluded "a long time ago" that none were the al-Qaida associate. He would not say whether the al-Qaida associate is in U.S. custody. Other sources said he was not.

A report last week by the 10-member commission concluded that al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden had "explored possible cooperation" with Iraq and that there had been contacts between Iraq and al-Qaida, but that these did not result in a "collaborative relationship."

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