Washington Times: Iraqi officer in al Qaeda, papers show

A senior officer in Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's security services was a member of the terrorist group that committed the September 11 attacks, a member of the commission investigating the suicide hijackings said yesterday.

"There is at least one officer of Saddam's Fedayeen, a lieutenant colonel, who was a very prominent member of al Qaeda," said September 11 commission member and former Navy Secretary John Lehman.

Although he stressed that the intelligence "still has to be confirmed," Mr. Lehman told NBC's "Meet the Press" that the information came from "captured documents" shown to the panel after the September 11 commission's staff report had been written.

The report, which received heavy news coverage when it was released last week, maintained that Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network had ties with Iraq, but did "not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship."