CNN - Blair: Al Qaeda did work in Iraq

British Prime Minister Tony Blair's office said al Qaeda agents operated in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, a day after a U.S. panel said it had found no link between the terrorist network and the former Iraqi leader.

Saddam "created a permissive environment for terrorism and we know that the people affiliated to al Qaeda operated in Iraq during the regime," a spokeswoman for Number 10 Downing Street said Thursday.

The spokeswoman, speaking on customary condition of anonymity, acknowledged there was no direct link between Saddam's regime and Osama bin Laden's operation.

"The prime minister always made it clear that Saddam's was a rogue state which threatened the security of the region and the world," the spokeswoman said.