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Osama bin Laden rejected proposals to plot joint terror attacks with Saddam Hussein's regime, according to two captured al-Qaida leaders.

Al-Qaida planner and recruiter Abu Zubaydah, who was seized last March, has reportedly told CIA interrogators bin Laden vetoed suggestions by top members of his network to form an alliance, because he did not want to be indebted to the Iraqi leader.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the group's head of operations before he was captured in Pakistan earlier this year, has also claimed that the network did not work with Iraq, US officials told the New York Times.

Washington frequently cited alleged links between al-Qaida and Iraq as a justification for toppling the Iraqi regime. George Bush warned several times of the dire consequences of the terror network getting hold of weapons of mass destruction from Iraq.

US forces have not discovered any firm evidence of joint operations by Iraq and al-Qaida, or any proof of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, in over two months since the war ended.

Zubaydah's debriefing report was circulated within the US intelligence community last year, but his statements were not made public by the Bush administration when discussing alleged ties between Iraq and al-Qaida, senior American officials told the newspaper.

One intelligence official said: "This gets to the serious question of to what extent did they try to align the facts with the conclusions that they wanted. Things pointing in one direction were given a lot of weight, and other things were discounted."

CIA boss George Tenet has denied suggestions that the agency repressed intelligence reports that did not fit the Bush administration's Iraq policy.

A CIA spokesman would not comment on what the al-Qaida leaders had told interrogators. US officials have previously warned about believing anything said by captured members of the terror group.

Story filed: 15:41 Monday 9th June 2003

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