Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live At Daybreak

CIA Director Tenet Says Iraq-al Qaeda Connection May Exist

Aired March 20, 2002 - 05:04   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: CIA Director George Tenet says there could be a connection between al Qaeda and Iraq. Tenet's assertion comes as a published report suggests Iraqi intelligence and al Qaeda are sponsoring a terrorist group.

CNN's David Ensor reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID ENSOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Though U.S. intelligence officials have consistently said they find no evidence so far that the government of President Saddam Hussein in Iraq has had any meaningful ties to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, George Tenet, director of Central Intelligence, told senators he could not rule out cooperation between the two.

GEORGE TENET, CIA DIRECTOR: Their ties may be limited by diverging ideologies, but the two sides' mutual antipathy toward the United States and the Saudi royal family suggest that tactical cooperation between them is possible, even though Saddam is well aware that such activity would carry serious consequences.

ENSOR: Tenet's comments came after an article in "The New Yorker" magazine said prisoners interviewed in a Kurdish jail in northern Iraq claim Iraqi intelligence and al Qaeda are acting as co- sponsors of a terrorist group called Ansar al-Islam. The prisoners also told ``The New Yorker" that Saddam Hussein hosted a senior leader of al Qaeda in Baghdad in 1992, that a number of al Qaeda members fleeing Afghanistan have been secretly brought into territory controlled by Ansar al-Islam, that Iraqi intelligence agents smuggled conventional weapons, and possibly even chemical and biological weapons, into Afghanistan.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG, "THE NEW YORKER": If this is true and if some of the other allegations that I report on are true, then it reveals a closer and deeper and more permanent kind of relationship between the Iraqi intelligence service and al Qaeda than we previously thought of.

ENSOR: U.S. officials say, however, that they have no credible evidence to suggest Saddam Hussein's intelligence service and the al Qaeda are working together in any way, though they say U.S. intelligence is watching closely. They note that the Kurds holding the prisoners have an interest in trying to convince the U.S. to take on their enemy, Saddam Hussein. So the words of prisoners they control have to be suspect.

(on camera): If evidence were to be found of Iraq cooperating with al Qaeda, that evidence would help the Bush administration convince neighboring states to get involved in an effort to overthrow the Iraqi regime. So administration officials are likely to press the CIA to check out these assertions by the prisoners in northern Iraq.

David Ensor, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com