WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Tuesday he was misunderstood when he stated hours earlier that he knew of no "strong, hard evidence" linking Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s Iraq (news - web sites) and al Qaeda.
"I have acknowledged since September 2002 that there were ties between al Qaeda and Iraq," Rumsfeld said in a Web site statement issued following remarks he made to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York Monday.
"Today at the Council, I even noted that 'when I'm in Washington, I pull out a piece of paper and say "I don't know, because I'm not in that business, but I'll tell you what the CIA (news - web sites) thinks" and I read it'."
In the new statement, issued on the Pentagon (news - web sites) Web site, Rumsfeld listed what he said were arguments for suggesting links between al Qaeda and Iraq under Saddam, including what the CIA regarded as "credible evidence" that al Qaeda leaders had sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire weapons of mass destruction.
Rumsfeld, during a question-and-answer session before the Council on Foreign Relations, had been asked to explain the connection between Saddam and Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s al Qaeda network -- one of the U.S. arguments for launching a war on Iraq.
He replied: "To my knowledge, I have not seen any strong, hard evidence that links the two."