( CNN ) -- Finding a `` smoking gun '' linking Iraq and al Qaeda became the main purpose of the abusive interrogation program the Bush administration authorized in 2002 , a former State Department official told CNN on Thursday . Dick Cheney 's office ordered use of `` alternative '' techniques against CIA 's recommendations , aide says . The allegation was included in an online broadside aimed at former Vice President Dick Cheney by Lawrence Wilkerson , chief of staff for then-Secretary of State Colin Powell . In it , Wilkerson wrote that the interrogation program began in April and May of 2002 , and then-Vice President Cheney 's office kept close tabs on the questioning . `` Its principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at preempting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al Qaeda , '' Wilkerson wrote in The Washington Note , an online political journal . Wilkerson , a retired Army colonel , said his accusation is based on information from current and former officials . He said he has been `` relentlessly digging '' since 2004 , when Powell asked him to look into the scandal surrounding the treatment of prisoners at Iraq 's Abu Ghraib prison . `` I could n't walk into a courtroom and prove this to anybody , but I 'm pretty sure it 's fairly accurate , '' he told CNN . Most of Wilkerson 's online essay criticizes Cheney 's recent defense of the `` alternative '' interrogation techniques the Bush administration authorized for use against suspected terrorists . Cheney has argued the interrogation program was legal and effective in preventing further attacks on Americans . Critics say the tactics amounted to the illegal torture of prisoners in U.S. custody and have called for investigations of those who authorized them . Representatives of the former vice president declined comment on Wilkerson 's allegations . But Wilkerson told CNN that by early 2002 , U.S. officials had decided that `` we had al Qaeda pretty much on the run . '' `` The priority had turned to other purposes , and one of those purposes was to find substantial contacts between al Qaeda and Baghdad , '' he said . The argument that Iraq could have provided weapons of mass destruction to terrorists such as al Qaeda was a key element of the Bush administration 's case for the March 2003 invasion . But after the invasion , Iraq was found to have dismantled its nuclear , chemical and biological weapons programs , and the independent commission that investigated the 2001 attacks found no evidence of a collaborative relationship between the two entities . Wilkerson wrote that in one case , the CIA told Cheney 's office that a prisoner under its interrogation program was now `` compliant , '' meaning agents recommended the use of `` alternative '' techniques should stop . At that point , `` The VP 's office ordered them to continue the enhanced methods , '' Wilkerson wrote . `` The detainee had not revealed any al Qaeda-Baghdad contacts yet . This ceased only after Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi , under waterboarding in Egypt , 'revealed ' such contacts . '' Al-Libi 's claim that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein 's government had trained al Qaeda operatives in producing chemical and biological weapons appeared in the October 2002 speech then-President Bush gave when pushing Congress to authorize military action against Iraq . It also was part of Powell 's February 2003 presentation to the United Nations on the case for war , a speech Powell has called a `` blot '' on his record . Al-Libi later recanted the claim , saying it was made under torture by Egyptian intelligence agents , a claim Egypt denies . He died last week in a Libyan prison , reportedly a suicide , Human Rights Watch reported . Stacy Sullivan , a counterterrorism adviser for the U.S.-based group , called al-Libi 's allegation `` pivotal '' to the Bush administration 's case for war , as it connected Baghdad to the terrorist organization behind the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington . And an Army psychiatrist assigned to support questioning of suspected terrorists at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba told the service 's inspector-general that interrogators there were trying to connect al Qaeda and Iraq . `` This is my opinion , '' Maj. Paul Burney told the inspector-general 's office . `` Even though they were giving information and some of it was useful , while we were there a large part of the time we were focused on trying to establish a link between aI Qaeda and Iraq and we were not being successful in establishing a link between aI Qaeda and Iraq . The more frustrated people got in not being able to establish this link ... there was more and more pressure to resort to measures that might produce more immediate results . '' Burney 's account was included in a Senate Armed Services Committee report released in April . Other interrogators reported pressure to produce intelligence `` but did not recall pressure to identify links between Iraq and al Qaeda , '' the Senate report states . Cheney criticized Powell during a television interview over the weekend , saying he no longer considers Powell a fellow Republican after his former colleague endorsed Democratic candidate Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election . Wilkerson said he is not speaking for his former boss and does not know whether Powell shares his views .
Dick Cheney criticizes Dick Cheney for defending interrogation methods . Interrogations aimed at finding `` smoking gun '' linking U.S. and Army , he says . By March 2003 , Iraq officials decided `` we had al Qaeda pretty much on the run , '' he says . Representatives of former vice president decline comment on allegations .