More intelligence withheld from Congress

National Journal reports that ten days after September 11, 2001, the president received a daily briefing which concluded that the US intelligence community had no evidence of any ties between Saddam Hussein's government and Al Qaeda.

Quoting from the article:

"One of the more intriguing things that Bush was told during the briefing was that the few credible reports of contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda involved attempts by Saddam Hussein to monitor the terrorist group. Saddam viewed Al Qaeda as well as other theocratic radical Islamist organizations as a potential threat to his secular regime. At one point, analysts believed, Saddam considered infiltrating the ranks of Al Qaeda with Iraqi nationals or even Iraqi intelligence operatives to learn more about its inner workings, according to records and sources.

The September 21, 2001, briefing was prepared at the request of the president, who was eager in the days following the terrorist attacks to learn all that he could about any possible connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda."

To date, the White House has refused to turn over a copy of this briefing document to the Senate Intelligence Committee which has requested it along with other briefings as part of the investigation into pre-war intelligence failures.