NY Times finally acknowledges memo tying Saddam and Osama

Paper still attempts to discredit reported ties.

"...The Oct. 27 memorandum from Douglas J. Feith, under secretary of defense for policy and planning, to the Senate intelligence committee listed 50 points of raw intelligence that, he said, pointed to an operational link between Iraq and Al Qaeda.

"The letter itself was highly classified, but its contents were reported over the weekend by The Weekly Standard, a journal with close ties to administration hawks. At a time when Democrats have been crowing about the administration's failure so far to find illicit weapons in Iraq, conservatives have seized on the claim as evidence that, because of its ties to Al Qaeda, Iraq did indeed pose a real danger to the United States.

"...Government officials with knowledge of intelligence on Iraq said that the reports cited by Mr. Feith were indeed authentic. But they also said they were not new, that some were not credible and that all had been weighed in the preparation of intelligence reports that concluded that the relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda remained ambiguous at best.

"...parts of the memo support the much stronger case presented by Bush administration officials who have repeatedly cited the ties as a threat to the United States and as a primary justification for the American invasion of Iraq.

"Among the 50 reports cited in Mr. Feith's memorandum, perhaps the most sensational is a Czech intelligence service claim that the Sept. 11 hijacker Muhammed Atta met several times in Prague with a former Iraqi intelligence chief, who in 2000 is said to have requested a transfer of funds to Mr. Atta. Yet the C.I.A. has said the meetings remain unconfirmed, as the memo also points out."

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