His 2004 book, "The Connection: How al Qaeda's Collaboration with Saddam Hussein has Endangered America" claimed to prove an operational relationship between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and al-Qaeda. His major source was a leaked memo from Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith to the U.S. Congress on 27 October 2003; Feith had been asked by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz to tie Hussein to Al Qaeda. Hayes covered the contents of this memo in a 2003 "Weekly Standard" article, where he concluded "there can no longer be any serious argument about whether Saddam Hussein's Iraq worked with Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda to plot against Americans." Other intelligence officials disputed the accuracy of the contents in Feith's memo, including W. Patrick Lang who was a former head of the Middle East section of the DIA and described the "Weekly Standard" article as "a listing of a mass of unconfirmed reports, many of which themselves indicate that the two groups continued to try to establish some sort of relationship. If they had such a productive relationship, why did they have to keep trying?" Assessments by the Pentagon and the CIA disavowed the contents of Feith's memo.