WASHINGTON — Vice President Dick Cheney revived two controversial assertions about the war in Iraq on Thursday, declaring there was "overwhelming evidence" that Saddam Hussein had a relationship with Al Qaeda and that two trailers discovered after the war were proof of Iraq's biological weapons programs.
The vice president stood by positions that others in the Bush administration have largely abandoned in recent months, as preliminary analysis of the trailers has been called into question and new evidence -- including a document found with Hussein when he was captured -- cast doubt on theories that Iraq and Al Qaeda collaborated.
Cheney's comments were seen as stoking the controversy over Iraq as the vice president was embarking on a trip to an economic summit in Switzerland and meetings with European officials, some of them fierce opponents of the war who have been dismissive of U.S. claims about the threat posed by Iraq.
Cheney has consistently espoused the most hawkish views among senior administration officials. His statements Thursday suggest he intends to maintain that tone as he takes a more high-profile role in President Bush's reelection campaign.
"There's overwhelming evidence there was a connection between Al Qaeda and the Iraqi government," Cheney said in an interview on National Public Radio. "I am very confident that there was an established relationship there."
That assertion appeared at odds with the recent words of other senior administration officials, including Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who said in an interview this month that he had "not seen smoking-gun, concrete evidence" of connections between Iraq and Al Qaeda.
Danielle Pletka, an analyst at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, defended Cheney's comments, saying he referred only to a "relationship" between Iraq and Al Qaeda.
"Nobody has ever said Saddam directed Al Qaeda in attacks," Pletka said. "But it is clear that had he decided to do so at any point it would have been easy."
Members of Congress and some in the intelligence community said Thursday that Cheney's comments could lead the public to believe there was collaboration between Iraq and Al Qaeda, and that that was not supported by the evidence.
U.S. intelligence officials agree that there was contact between Hussein's agents and Al Qaeda members as far back as a decade ago and that operatives with ties to Al Qaeda had at times found safe haven in Iraq. But no intelligence has surfaced to suggest a deeper relationship, and other information turned up recently has suggested that significant ties were unlikely.
