The Saddam–al-Qaeda conspiracy theory was a conspiracy theory based on allegations made by U.S. government officials, who claimed that a highly secretive relationship existed between Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and the radical Islamist militant organization Al-Qaeda between 1992 and 2003, specifically through a series of meetings reportedly involving the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS). In the lead-up to the Iraq War, George W. Bush administration officials alleged that the Saddam Hussein regime had an operational relationship with al-Qaeda (even though there was scant credible evidence of such a relationship at the time), basing the administration's rationale for war, in part, on this allegation and others. A 2007 Pentagon Inspector General report concluded that Douglas Feith's office in the Department of Defense had "developed, produced, and then disseminated alternative intelligence assessments on the Iraq and al-Qaeda relationship, which included some conclusions that were inconsistent with the consensus of the Intelligence Community, to senior decision-makers." The consensus of intelligence experts has been that these contacts never led to an operational relationship, and that consensus is backed up by reports from the independent 9/11 Commission and by declassified Defense Department reports as well as by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, whose 2006 report of Phase II of its investigation into prewar intelligence reports concluded that there was no evidence of ties between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. Critics of the Bush Administration have said Bush was intentionally building a case for war with Iraq without regard to factual evidence. On April 29, 2007, former Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet said on 60 Minutes, "We could never verify that there was any Iraqi authority, direction and control, complicity with al-Qaeda for 9/11 or any operational act against America, period." Background During the lead-up to the Iraq War, two questions were raised regarding an alleged connection between Saddam Hussein's government and al-Qaeda. The first question was whether the Iraqi regime and al-Qaeda had a cooperative relationship, and the second was whether Saddam Husein's government supported the September 11 attacks. While some contacts between agents of Saddam's government and members of al-Qaeda have been alleged, the consensus of experts and analysts has held that those contacts never led to an "operational" relationship. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence concluded that there was only one actual encounter between representatives of the Baathist regime and representatives of al-Qaeda. This single meeting took place in the Sudan in 1995,