Tape Shows Clark Linked Iraq and Al Qaeda

"Certainly there's a connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda," he said in 2002. "It doesn't surprise me at all that they would be talking to Al Qaeda, that there would be some Al Qaeda there or that Saddam Hussein might even be, you know, discussing gee, I wonder since I don't have any scuds and since the Americans are coming at me, I wonder if I could take advantage of Al Qaeda? How would I do it? Is it worth the risk? What could they do for me?"

At numerous campaign events in the past three months and in a book published last year, General Clark has asserted that there was no evidence linking Iraq and Al Qaeda. He has also accused the Bush administration of executing "a world-class bait-and-switch," by using the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, as an excuse to invade Iraq.

At a town hall meeting here on Jan. 4, for example, General Clark said, "There was no imminent threat from Iraq, nor was Iraq connected with Al Qaeda."

"If Iraq had been there as the base of Al Qaeda to organize and train everybody, then maybe we could have justified the attack on Iraq," he added.