From The NY Times
By Mark Mazzetti

The Central Intelligence Agency last fall repudiated the idea that there were pre-war ties between Saddam Hussein’s government and the Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, according to a report issued on Friday by the Senate intelligence committee.

The disclosure undercuts continuing claims by the Bush administration that such ties existed, and that they provided evidence of links between Iraq and Al Qaeda. The Republican-controlled committee also sharply criticized the administration for its reliance on the Iraqi National Congress during the run-up to the war in Iraq.

The findings, in two new reports, are part of an ongoing inquiry by the Senate committee into pre-war intelligence about Iraq. The conclusions went beyond the committee’s earlier findings, issued in the summer of 2004, by including criticism not just of American intelligence agencies but also the administration.

The reports did not address the politically divisive question of whether Bush administration had exaggerated or misused intelligence in its effort to win support for the invasion of Iraq. But they did serve to undercut the administration’s assertions, made before the war and since, that ties between Mr. Zarqawi and Mr. Hussein’s government provided evidence of a close relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda.

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