WASHINGTON, Aug 5: A new book published on Tuesday accuses the Bush White House of forging documents to justify invading Iraq.

The forged documents included a back-dated, handwritten letter from the head of Iraqi intelligence to Saddam Hussein linking the former Iraqi leader to the 9/11 attacks. The letter also supported the US claim that Saddam Hussein was working on a plan to make nuclear weapons.

In his new book — ‘The Way of the World’ — Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind accuses the Bush White House of ordering CIA to manipulate intelligence to support the Iraq war.

Mr Suskind claims that after a White House meeting, former CIA director George Tenet went back to the CIA and ordered his staff to forge the letter. “Listen Marine, you’re not going to like this, but here goes,’ Mr Tenet told Rob Richer, former head of the CIA’s Near East Division, according to Richer.”

This letter, in the handwriting of Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti, is dated July, 2001. It says that Iraqis hosted Mohammed Atta, one of the 9/11 hijackers, who, “displayed extraordinary effort and showed a firm commitment to lead the team which will be responsible for attacking the targets that we have agreed to destroy.” The letter goes on to suggest that Iraq was importing uranium from Niger for a nuclear programme.

The book alleges that Mr Habbush, Saddam Hussein’s intelligence chief, was in CIA protective custody after the 2003 invasion, that the White House ordered CIA officials to have Mr Habbush write and backdate the letter, and paid him $5 million. The author quotes two former CIA officials who claim to have seen a draft of the letter on White House stationery.

Mr Suskind writes: “The idea was to take the letter to Habbush and have him transcribe it in his own neat handwriting on a piece of Iraqi government stationery to make it look legitimate. CIA would then take the finished product to Baghdad and have someone release it to the media.”

The letter was released, and published in 2003 by the British and US media outlets — including The (London) Sunday Telegraph and Fox News, Politico reports — as evidence of a Saddam/Al Qaeda link.

The author also claims that the Bush administration had information from a top Iraqi intelligence official “that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq – intelligence they received in plenty of time to stop an invasion.”

Mr Tenet, however, called the charges ‘ridiculous’ and questioned whether Mr Suskind is a ‘serious journalist.’ “There was no such order from the White House to me,’ he said on NBC’s Today Show.

“The CIA resisted efforts on the part of some in the administration to paint a picture of Iraqi-Al Qaeda connections that went beyond the evidence. The notion that I would suddenly reverse our stance and have created and planted false evidence that was contrary to our own beliefs is ridiculous,” he said. Mr Suskind insists that his information is correct. The author said Mr Tenet simply does not remember the letter — but Mr Tenet’s staff does. “I think this is part of George’s memory issue....He seems not to remember it. That’s at least what he claims. In this book, instead of going to George, I went to all the people around George, close to George, who remember because they were involved in the thing, and they remember what George says to them.”