Iraq Had Nothing To Do With Al Qaida, Period!

According to a Senate report on prewar intel.

(AP)There's no evidence Saddam Hussein had a relationship with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his Al-Qaida associates, according to a Senate report on prewar intelligence on Iraq
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It discloses for the first time an October 2005 CIA assessment that prior to the war Saddam's government "did not have a relationship, harbor, or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi and his associates," according to excerpts of the 400-page report provided by Democrats.

Bush and other administration officials have said that the presence of Zarqawi in Iraq before the war was evidence of a connection between Saddam's government and al-Qaida. Zarqawi was killed by a U.S. airstrike in June this year.

White House press secretary Tony Snow played down the report as "nothing new."

So does this mean that Tony Snow and the White House already knew that Zarqawi and Saddam had no 'alliance', but continued to say it because it helped their cause?

Full Senate report(pdf)