By John Diamond
USA Today  July 29, 2002

WASHINGTON — Bush administration lawyers have concluded that establishing a link between al-Qaeda terrorists and Iraq would provide the legal justification the White House needs to attack Saddam Hussein's regime, U.S. officials say.

An intensive effort by U.S. intelligence to establish a link between al-Qaeda and Iraq is being driven, in part, by a conclusion reached in recent weeks by White House and Pentagon legal and legislative advisers. They believe that connecting Iraq and the Sept. 11 attacks would allow the administration to avoid debates at the United Nations and in Congress over what some would call an unprovoked strike.

The administration has sought the connection since the first days after Sept. 11.

The idea of using that connection as legal grounds for military action has gelled only recently, however, as the administration has developed its military options and confronted the difficulty of gaining support from allies for attacking Iraq. Countries such as Russia and France, both permanent U.N. Security Council members, have been pushing to ease sanctions on Iraq and have raised concerns about an unprovoked attack.

Administration experts are looking to U.N. Security Council Resolution 1373 and Senate Joint Resolution 23, both of which were passed in the days after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, as the legal basis for a military campaign against Iraq.

The U.N. resolution, which passed Sept. 28, affirms "the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense" by nations faced with the threat of terror attack and the need "to combat by all means" threats to international peace and security posed by terrorists. The Senate resolution, which passed Sept. 14, authorizes the president "to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided" the terrorist attacks.

Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Joseph Biden, D-Del., said top White House officials have asked him repeatedly what congressional authorization, if any, the administration would require. Biden, who opens hearings this week on the possibility of war with Iraq, has told them that they must come to Congress but that if President Bush can link al-Qaeda and Iraq, "he has the authority" to use force. Sen. John Warner, R-Va., said a debate in Congress is unavoidable.

"He'll have to come to Congress," said Warner, the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee and author of the 1991 resolution clearing the way for the Persian Gulf War. "No existing resolutions of a general nature would suffice to meet that political — not legal — requirement." A White House spokesman declined to comment on the issue. A State Department official called the legal review a prudent way to preserve all options.

Many congressional leaders — including those who support the use of force against Saddam — worry that the administration needs a clearer justification than the belief that Iraq has developed weapons of mass destruction. Only tenuous links have surfaced between Iraq and al-Qaeda. No evidence has been found of close cooperation or of Iraqi involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks.

A senior Pentagon intelligence official said that merely finding al-Qaeda members hiding in Iraq would not be enough to provide legal cover, according to an administration analysis. They would have to be senior al-Qaeda members, and the Iraqi government would have to refuse to turn them over.

Jordan's King Abdullah II said U.S. intervention in Iraq would be "somewhat ludicrous" while the Middle East is in turmoil. Speaking Sunday on CNN, Abdullah, whose country shares a 100-mile border with Iraq, said he will not discuss an invasion of Iraq during talks Thursday with Bush in Washington.