THE CONNECTION

Saddam wasn't working with al-Qaeda, but we know who had an operational link with the Bush administration:

But the [Senate Intelligence Committee] report provides evidence of how administration officials held preconceived notions that appear to have affected how they viewed the intelligence information they received.

One senior intelligence officer in the Defense Intelligence Agency told the committee that some officials working for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld were convinced that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was behind the 1993 World Trade Center attack and may even have been involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"They did not tell us what to say," the intelligence officer told the committee. "There wasn't pressure in that sense. But you certainly had to make sure that your analysis was on target and that you were very precise in the words that you used."

--Washington Post

Laurie Mylroie is the author of two books on Saddam Hussein. The most recent, Study of Revenge--Saddam Hussein's Unfinished War Against America, assembles evidence that Saddam was behind the bomb plot to topple the World Trade Center towers in 1993 and that two Iraqi intelligence agents were masterminds of the plot.

The Defense Policy Group for the Defense Department, this panel of very esteemed Washingtonians, people from power in the past and such, recently came to some decisions. Can you tell us about that?

I was not at the Defense Policy Board meeting. Some people who were, some friends, told me about it. And what I heard was that, in some respects, my work on terrorism played a prominent role. There are people [who are] involved in this debate with the book who are familiar with this book [and] who have endorsed it. I think it makes a compelling case that Iraq was involved in the first attack on the World Trade Center back in 1993, and then it raises questions -- serious questions -- about whether Iraq has not been involved in subsequent terrorism.

--biography and exchange from an interview with Laurie Mylroie, 10/18/01, posted at the Web site for PBS's Frontline