A newly declassified report from the Pentagon’s inspector general concludes that Saddam Hussein was not directly cooperating with al-Qaeda before the U.S. invasion of Iraq despite claims by the Bush administration. The Pentagon’s report is based in part on captured Iraqi documents and interrogations of Saddam Hussein and two former aides. The declassified report reveals that the CIA had concluded as early as June 2002 that there were few substantiated contacts between al-Qaeda operatives and Iraqi officials. However, top Bush administration officials ignored the CIA’s findings. In September 2002, Pentagon official Douglas Feith asserted that the relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda was “mature” and “symbiotic.” Feith’s comments came in a briefing to Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, Lewis Scooter Libby. Feith also suggested that Iraq might have been involved in 9/11 and other al-Qaeda attacks. Despite the Pentagon’s new report, Vice President Cheney is still claiming there were ties between Iraq and al-Qaeda. He appeared on Rush Limbaugh’s radio program yesterday and claimed that al-Qaeda was operating inside Iraq before the U.S. invasion.