Politics As Usual

[sgtclub]

From Chris Matthews interview with Jim Woolsey

MATTHEWS: OK.

The hottest issue today I think in the country is not whether there‘s WMD in that country or they were, because we‘re past that. We‘re in the war. We‘re in that country. The connection between al Qaeda and Iraq before the war, that‘s still a measure of dispute there. That‘s the dispute, isn‘t it, whether there was a connection between international terrorism in Iraq or not before we went to war with Iraq?

WOOLSEY: I think there‘s a reasonable argument as to whether or not there was control. I doubt that there really was control by Iraq over al Qaeda or sponsorship.

But connections, there were plenty. Tenet said twice on the record that there was training by the Iraqis of al Qaeda in conventional explosives.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: In the north.

WOOLSEY: Not just in the north.

In conventional explosives, gases and poisons.

MATTHEWS: Right.

WOOLSEY: And he said there were, there was help with false documentation of sort of rest and recreation.

MATTHEWS: Right.

WOOLSEY: [B]Going back a decade in these connections.

So connections are different than control. And a lot of people who deny that there was control by Iraq, I think, are probably right. But connections, talking, sharing information here and there, some training, that went on for a decade.

(CROSSTALK)

WOOLSEY: And there shouldn‘t be a dispute about that.