President George W. Bush on Al-Qaeda:

"One of the greatest dangers we face is that weapons of mass destruction might be passed to terrorists who would not hesitate to use those weapons. Saddam Hussein has longstanding, direct and continuing ties to terrorist networks. Senior members of Iraq intelligence and al Qaeda have met at least eight times since the early 1990s. Iraq has sent bomb-making and document forgery experts to work with al Qaeda. Iraq has also provided al Qaeda with chemical and biological weapons training. And an al Qaeda operative was sent to Iraq several times in the late 1990s for help in aquiring poisons and gases. We also know that Iraq is harboring a terrorist network headed by a senior al Qaeda terrorist planner."
Source: President's Radio Address, White House (2/8/200.


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Explanation This statement was misleading because it asserted that Iraq was providing support to al Qaeda. In fact, the U.S. intelligence community had conflicting evidence on this issue and was divided regarding whether there was an operational relationship. The statement also was misleading because it evoked the threat of Iraq providing al Qaeda with weapons of mass destruction. According to the National Intelligence Estimate, the intelligence community had "low confidence" in that scenario.