WASHINGTON – The White House and the CIA on Tuesday adamantly denied a report that the Bush administration concocted a letter purporting to show a link between Saddam Hussein's regime and al-Qaida as ajustification for the Iraq war. 

The allegation was raised by Washington-based journalist Ron Suskind in a new book, "The Way of the World," published Tuesday. The letter supposedly was written by Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti, director of Iraqi intelligence under Saddam Hussein. 

"The White House had concocted a fake letter from Habbush to Saddam, backdated to July 1, 2001," Suskind wrote. "It said that 9/11 ringleader Mohammad Atta had actually trained for his mission in Iraq thus showing, finally, that there was an operational link between Saddam and al-Qaida, something the vice president's office had been pressing CIA to prove since 9/11 as a justification to invade Iraq. There is no link."  

Suskind said the letter's existence had been reported before, and that it had been treated as if it were genuine. 

Denying the report, White House deputy press secretary Tony Fratto said, "The notion that the White House directed anyone to forge a letter from Habbush to Saddam Hussein is absurd." 

Fratto and former CIA Director George Tenet also rejected Suskind's allegation that the U.S. had credible intelligence, before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, that Saddam did not possess weapons of mass destruction. It was supposedly British intelligence, based on information from a senior Iraqi official. 

Suskind told The Associated Press that the criticism from the White House and Tenet were expected. He said Tenet "is not credible on this issue" and the White House "is all but obligated to deny this." 

Tenet also challenged Suskind's assertion that the U.S. ignored intelligence that Saddam did not have weapons of mass destruction. 

"As Mr. Suskind tells it," Tenet said, "the White House directed (and CIA allegedly went along with) burying that information so that the war could go ahead as planned. This is a complete fabrication. In fact, the source in question failed to persuade his British interlocutors that he had anything new to offer by way of intelligence, concessions, or negotiations with regard to the Iraq crisis and the British on their own elected to break off contact with him."