US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice vigorously defended administration claims of a link between Iraq and the al-Qaeda terrorist network, but said it fell short of “operational control.” Disputing allegations by leading Democrats that the White House had misled the US public to justify the invasion of Iraq, Rice said Iraqi security services had maintained contacts with al-Qaeda going back a decade. “It’s simply not true that there was no contact, that there were no relationships between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein,” she said in an interview with Fox News Sunday from Ankara en route to a NATO summit with President George W. Bush. “I would say, yeah, it wasn’t operational control. But there was some facilitation of what al-Qaeda was trying to accomplish,” Rice said. Full Story