White House denies faking Iraq-al-Qaida link

Tenet: 'A complete fabrication'
“As Mr. Suskind tells it,” Tenet said, “the White House directed (and CIA allegedly went along with) burying that information so that the war could go ahead as planned. This is a complete fabrication. In fact, the source in question failed to persuade his British interlocutors that he had anything new to offer by way of intelligence, concessions, or negotiations with regard to the Iraq crisis and the British on their own elected to break off contact with him.”

Tenet said, “There were many Iraqi officials who said both publicly and privately that Iraq had no WMD but our foreign intelligence colleagues and we assessed that these individuals were parroting the Baath party line and trying to delay any coalition attack. The particular source that Suskind cites offered no evidence to back up his assertion and acted in an evasive and unconvincing manner.”

Suskind wrote that Habbush first told British intelligence agent Michael Shipster in January 2003 that invading forces would not find the weapons in Iraq.

“After being told that Habbush had said there were no WMD, Bush was frustrated,” Suskind wrote in the book, quoting Bush telling an aide, “Why don’t they ask him to give us something we can use to help us make our case?”

Suskind quotes Richer as saying Habbush’s information was disregarded by an administration determined to invade.

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