Straw: Iraq visit

Jack Straw arrived in northern Iraq on Tuesday for talks with Kurdish political leaders.

Details of the top level visit were not announced before his arrival.

Following a series of attacks on multi-national forces, the foreign secretary is likely to focus talks on the security situation in Iraq, as well as on elections planned for in January.

Straw's arrival in Iraq came as Donald Rumsfeld cast doubt on claims that there was ever a link between Saddam Hussein and the al Qaeda network.

Speaking in New York, the US defense secretary admitted that he had "not seen any strong, hard evidence that links the two".

However, he claimed that Iraq had been on the US State Department's terrorist list and had made payments to Palestinian suicide bombers.

"The relationships between these folks are complicated," he said.

"They evolve and change over time. In many cases, these different networks have common funders."

He also admitted that there had been faulty intelligence regarding Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, and that the US had failed to find any so far.

"Why the intelligence proved wrong, I'm not in a position to say, but the world is a lot better of with Saddam Hussein in jail," he added.

But hours after his appearance, Rumsfeld issued a statement saying his comments had been "regrettably misunderstood", and that he had acknowledged a link between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.