Repeated statements claiming Saddam was linked to Al Qaeda

Bush

"...And I've got a good evidence to believe that ... He has trained and financed al-Qaida-type organizations before, al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations..."

Fox News:
"...But while Al Qaeda and Palestinian militants, some backed by Iraq, share a hatred of Israelis and Americans and use similar methods, such as suicide attacks, Israeli intelligence sources say no link has yet been conclusively established between Saddam and Al Qaeda..."

Bryan Bender (Boston Globe):
"...But a National Intelligence Estimate from October 2002, portions of which were declassified on Friday [in July 2003], stated that ''Baghdad for now appears to be drawing a line short of conducting terrorist attacks...against the United States, fearing that exposure of Iraqi involvement would provide Washington a stronger case for making war.'' 
Analysts previously questioned whether bin Laden's Islamic network would have formed an alliance with Hussein's secular government. ''Nobody thought there were any very serious links on the Al Qaeda aspect of it,'' a senior intelligence official said last week, speaking on condition of anonymity..."

BBC News:
"...There are no current links between the Iraqi regime and the al-Qaeda network, according to an official British intelligence report seen by BBC News. The classified document, written by defence intelligence staff three weeks ago, says there has been contact between the two in the past. But it assessed that any fledgling relationship foundered due to mistrust and incompatible ideologies. That conclusion flatly contradicts one of the main charges laid against Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein by the United States and Britain - that he has cultivated contacts with the group blamed for the 11 September attacks. The report emerges even as Washington was calling Saddam a liar for denying, in a television interview with former Labour MP and minister Tony Benn, that he had any links to al-Qaeda.

Joe Conason (Salon):
"...Has Saddam trained and financed al-Qaida -- or "al-Qaida type organizations," whatever that may mean? Not according to the State Department's most recent annual report on international terrorism, which was issued last year. That presumably authoritative document describes Iran as "the most active state sponsor of terrorism," and accuses the Tehran regime of providing significant assistance to such al-Qaida-type (meaning Islamist) outfits as Lebanese Hizballah, Hamas and Palestine Islamic Jihad. The report also fingers Sudan and Syria for providing "safe haven" and other aid to Islamist terror organizations. 
But until now the U.S. government lodged no such accusation against Iraq. While the report says Baghdad continues to assist "numerous terrorist groups," the organizations specifically named by the State Department are all secular, not Islamist. The groups with ties to Iraq are "Marxist" or "socialist" in orientation, making them "infidels" like Saddam in the eyes of the Islamists. The State Department report on Iraq doesn't mention any links to al-Qaida at all. It also points out that the "main focus" of Saddam's support for terrorism "was on dissident Iraqi activity overseas."..."

Los Angeles Times (via Uggabugga):
"...Allies Find No Links Between Iraq, Al Qaeda
Evidence isn't there, officials in Europe say, adding that an attack on Hussein would worsen the threat of terrorism by Islamic radicals. 
"We have found no evidence of links between Iraq and Al Qaeda," said Jean-Louis Bruguiere, the French judge who is the dean of the region's investigators after two decades fighting Islamic and Middle Eastern terrorists. "And we are working on 50 cases involving Al Qaeda or radical Islamic cells. I think if there were such links, we would have found them. But we have found no serious connections whatsoever." Even in Britain, a loyal U.S. partner in the campaign against Iraq, it's hard to find anyone in the government making the case that Al Qaeda and the Iraqi regime are close allies. 
The criticism in Europe reinforces the misgivings of some U.S. congressional leaders and intelligence officials about hawks in the Bush administration who allege that Iraq could have even played a role in the Sept. 11 attacks. Critics say that the evidence is weak and that intelligence agencies are feeling political pressure to implicate Iraq in terrorism. In the last two months, Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and others have periodically revived and expanded on the allegations..."

(being extremely compassionate)

"...claimed that Saddam "has trained and financed" al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. He referred to "a poison plant in northeast Iraq" and "a man named Zarqawi who is in charge of the poison network." And he said, "To assume that Saddam Hussein knew none of this was going on is not to really understand the nature of the Iraqi society."..."

Bush

"...In a Cincinnati speech delivered Oct. 7, on the eve of a congressional vote authorizing him to wage war on Iraq, President Bush [said] that “one very senior Al Qaeda leader” had “received medical treatment in Baghdad”—an obvious reference to Zarqawi, who had his leg amputated there in 2002..."

Powell

"...described Zarqawi as “an associate and collaborator of Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda lieutenants.” During his stay in Baghdad, Powell claimed that “nearly two dozen…al Qaeda affiliates” converged on the Iraqi capital and “established a base of operations there.”..."

Powell for Bush

"...But what I want to bring to your attention today is the potentially much more sinister nexus between Iraq and the Al Qaida terrorist network, a nexus that combines classic terrorist organizations and modern methods of murder. Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network headed by Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, an associate and collaborator of Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaida lieutenants..."

Powell for Bush

"...said Zarqawi's network represents a potentially "more sinister nexus between Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network" than the connections Baghdad previously had with terrorist groups such as the Palestine Liberation Front, which it had supplied with money, small arms and explosives. Powell said Zarqawi has a "cell" in Baghdad from which associates "coordinate the movement of people, money and supplies into and throughout Iraq for his network." ..."

Dana Milbank (Washington Post):
"...In the case of the al Qaeda leader receiving medical treatment, U.S. intelligence officials acknowledged that the terrorist, Abu Musab Zarqawi, was no longer in Iraq and that there was no hard evidence Hussein's government knew he was there or had contact with him..."

Glen Rangwala (via Dennis Hans):
"...Powell’s claim about the Iraqi government’s assistance of al-Qa’ida is based upon the fact that an operative of Ansar al-Islam, and his associates, were in Baghdad. He need not stop there. The head of Ansar al-Islam, Mullah Krekar (Najm al-Din Faraj) is currently living freely in Norway (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east?2713749.stm and http://www.middleeastreference.org.uk/iraqiopposition.html#ansar). The US has not requested his arrest. If Iraq is guilty of occasional meetings with second-level al-Qa’ida operatives, then what is the Norweigan government guilty of?..."

Glen Rangwala:
"...[Powell said] "One of [Zarqawi's] specialties, and one of the specialties of this camp, is poisons...The network is teaching its operatives how to produce ricin and other poisons."
Powell presented slide 39, "Terrorist Poison and Explosives Factory, Khurmal" (Feb 2002) with this claim. However, the village of Khurmal is under the control of the Islamic Group of Kurdistan (Komaleh Islami), a pragmatist group that is allied with (and partly funded by) the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan - the most pro-US of the major Kurdish groupings.
Ansar al-Islam however does control a camp in nearby Sargat village. Luke Harding of The Observer [London] visited the camp and claimed he saw "no sign of chemical weapons anywhere", and that "the terrorist factory was nothing of the kind - more a dilapidated collection of concrete outbuildings at the foot of a grassy sloping hill" [Revealed: truth behind US 'poison factory' claim’ in The Observer (London) on 9 February 2003 at http://www.observer.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,892112,00.html].
Another journalist who visited the camp reported for the Las Vegas Tribune that "the most sophisticated equipment seen at the site was the video gear and makeshift television studio Ansar says it uses to make its propaganda films."..."

Glen Rangwala and Raymond Whitaker (Traprockpeace.org):
"...This camp was found to contain no suspicious materials. A journalist from ABC who entered the camp with US forces reported, "A specialized biochemical team scoured the rubble for samples. They wore protective masks as they entered a building they suspected was a weapons lab, but found nothing."..."

Susan Taylor Martin (St. Petersburg Times):
"...Powell cited a 'sinister nexus' between the two, based in large part on the previously reported activities of Abu Musab Zarqawi. An al-Qaida operative, Zarqawi purportedly runs a camp in northeastern Iraq from which he directs terrorist operations, including last year's assassination of a U.S. aid official in Jordan. Powell said Zarqawi spent two months in Baghdad last May for medical treatment. Through an unnamed third country, the United States asked Iraq to extradite him, but it refused. But Powell's efforts to link Iraq and al-Qaida are weakened by the fact that Zarqawi's camp is in an area controlled by the Kurds, not Hussein's government. Powell tried to get around that by maintaining that a senior Iraqi agent belongs to an organization that 'controls this corner of Iraq.'..."

Greg Miller (Los Angeles Times):
"...Secretary of State Colin L. Powell spent a significant part of his presentation to the United Nations this week describing a terrorist camp in northern Iraq where Al Qaeda affiliates are said to be training to carry out attacks with explosives and poisons. But neither Powell nor other administration officials answered the question: What is the United States doing about it?...The lawmakers put new pressure on the Bush administration to explain its decision to leave the facility, which it has known about for months, unharmed...Absent an explanation from the White House, some officials suggested that the administration has refrained from striking the compound in part to preserve a key piece of its case against Iraq...Failing to intervene appears to be at odds with President Bush's stated policy of preempting terrorist threats, and the facility is in an area where the United States already has a considerable presence. U.S. intelligence agents are said to be operating among the Kurdish population nearby, and U.S. and British warplanes patrol much of northern Iraq as part of their enforcement of a "no-fly" zone..."

Walter Pincus (Washington Post):
"...Senior administration officials said that, although Zarqawi has ties to bin Laden's group, he is not under al Qaeda control or direction. "They have common goals," one intelligence analyst said, "but he [Zarqawi] is outside bin Laden's circle. He is not sworn al Qaeda." ...
Senior U.S. officials, contacted by telephone yesterday, said that, although the Iraqi government is aware of the group's activity, it does not operate, control or sponsor it.
Zarqawi's network, Powell said, maintains a camp in northeastern Kurdish Iraq -- territory not controlled by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein -- that is within a small enclave ruled by an Islamic fundamentalist group called Ansar al-Islam. Powell said Baghdad has an "agent" in "the most senior levels" of Ansar, implying a special relationship with the Hussein government.
A senior government official said U.S. intelligence has no direct knowledge of what the "agent" does. "He may be spying on the Ansar group. He may be a liaison with Baghdad," the official said. "Saddam Hussein likes to keep an eye on such groups."...
The exiled former head of Ansar, Mullah Krekar, told the Guardian newspaper of London yesterday that he has no links with Iraqi leaders. "I am against Saddam Hussein," he said from his home in Oslo. "I want [Iraq] to change into an Islamic regime."
At a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing yesterday, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) asked Powell why no military action has been taken against the Ansar camp since U.S. officials became aware of it in August..."

Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball (Newsweek):
"...Hundreds of pages of confidential German law-enforcement records raise new questions about the Bush administration’s core evidence purporting to show solid links between Osama bin Laden’s terror network and Saddam Hussein’s regime...seem to undercut highly touted administration claims that Abu Mussab Al Zarqawi, a hardened Jordanian terrorist who once received medical treatment in Baghdad, was a key player in Al Qaeda.
        In fact, the secret German records—compiled during interrogations with a captured Zarqawi associate—suggest that the shadowy Zarqawi headed his own terrorist group, called Al Tawhid, with its own goals and may even have been a jealous rival of Al Qaeda. The captured associate, Shadi Abdallah, who is now on trial in Germany, told his interrogators last year that Zarqawi’s Al Tawid organization was one of several Islamist groups that acted “in opposition” to bin Laden’s Al Qaeda. At one point, Abdallah described how Zarqawi even vetoed the idea of splitting charity funds collected in Germany between Al Tawhid and Al Qaeda...According to Abdullah, Zarqawi’s Al Tawhid group focuses on installing an Islamic regime in Jordan and killing Jews. And although Al Tawhid maintained its own training camp near Herat, Afghanistan, Zarqawi competed with bin Laden for trainees and members, Abdallah claimed...Transcripts of Abdallah’s interrogations...indicate that while there was certainly interaction between members of Zarqawi’s Jordanian-focused terror group and Al Qaeda, the organizations largely operated separately and had different aims. Shadi Abdallah told investigators how he himself initially was recruited to go to an Al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan by one of Osama bin Laden’s sons-in-law...Later, he was briefly assigned to be one of bin Laden’s bodyguards...But after “only about two weeks” as a bin Laden bodyguard, Abdallah told German investigators, he became disenchanted with bin Laden’s hard-line ideology, which he found distasteful because of bin Laden’s insistence that the Koran allowed the killing of women children and old people..."

Spencer Ackerman (Washington Monthly) via Matt Yglesias:
"...U.S. intelligence had already concluded last year that Zarqawi's ties to al Qaeda were informal at best. He "occasionally associated with al Qaeda adherents," as The Washington Post reported, but Zarqawi was not a "very senior al Qaeda leader," as President Bush had described him in an October 2002 speech. And if Zarqawi's ties to al Qaeda were loose, his ties to Saddam were practically non-existent. Far from being "harbored" by Saddam, Ansar al Islam operated out of northeastern Iraq, an area under Kurdish control that was being protected from Saddam's incursions by U.S. warplanes. Indeed, some of its members fought against Saddam during the Iran-Iraq war. Powell asserted that Saddam dispatched an agent to Ansar to forge an alliance with the Kurdish terrorists. If true, the far more likely explanation, however, is that the dictator had placed an agent in the group not to aid them, as Powell implied to the Security Council, but to keep tabs on a potential threat to his own regime..."

Alan Gilbert (Priority Peace):
"...Contrary evidence: 
"Senior U.S. officials, contacted by telephone yesterday, said that, although the Iraqi government is aware of the group's activity, it does not operate, control or sponsor it." 
The Washington Post, p. A21 "Alleged Al Qaeda Ties Questioned" 02-07-03
...
"In the case of the al Qaeda leader receiving medical treatment, U.S. intelligence officials acknowledged that the terrorist, Abu Musab Zarqawi, was no longer in Iraq and that there was no hard evidence Hussein's government knew he was there or had contact with him." 
The Washington Post, p. A01 "For Bush, Facts Are Malleable" 10-22-02

"’Is there any confirmed evidence of Iraq's links to terrorism? No,’ said Vincent M. Cannistraro, former head of the CIA's counterterrorism office." 
The Washington Post, p. A01 "U.S. Not Claiming Iraqi Link To Terror" 09-10-02
...
"There are no current links between the Iraqi regime and the al-Qaeda network, according to an official British intelligence report seen by BBC News." 
BBC News "Leaked report rejects Iraqi al-Qaeda link" 02-05-03

"Most specifically, analysts who have scrutinized photographs, communications intercepts and information from foreign informants have concluded they cannot validate two prominent allegations made by high-ranking administration officials: links between Hussein and al Qaeda members who have taken refuge in northern Iraq and an April 2001 meeting in Prague between Sept. 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence agent. 
The Washington Post, p. A01 "U.S. Not Claiming Iraqi Link To Terror" 09-10-02..."

"...said terrorist cells which had infiltrated western Europe, including Britain, had "graduated" from a camp in Afghanistan run by Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian, who, he said, had close ties with Saddam Hussein's regime...He added: "The plot also targeted Britain. Later evidence again proved him right. When the British unearthed a cell there just last month, one British police officer was murdered during the disruption of the cell."..."

Bush

"...said Zarqawi's network "was caught producing poisons in London."..."

Walter Pincus (Washington Post):
"...In his remarks at the White House after meeting with Powell yesterday, Bush said Zarqawi's network "was caught producing poisons in London."
However, senior administration officials said a connection with Zarqawi "is still being investigated," a statement echoed by London law enforcement officials quoted in British newspapers. .."

"...We've learned that Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb making and poisons and deadly gases..."

Cheney for Bush

"...We learn more and more that there was a relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda that stretched back through most of the decade of the '90s,...that it involved training, for example, on [biological and chemical weapons], that Al Qaeda sent personnel to Baghdad to get trained on the systems...."

Walter Pincus (Washington Post):
"...The National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, which represented the consensus of the U.S. intelligence community, contained cautionary language about Iraq's connections with al Qaeda and warnings about the reliability of conflicting reports by Iraqi defectors and captured al Qaeda members about the ties, the sources said...[Bush] said "we've learned" that Iraq trained al Qaeda members "in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases." Although the president offered essentially circumstantial evidence, his remarks contained none of the caveats about the reliability of this information as contained in the national intelligence document, sources said...
As for Bush's claim that Iraq had trained al Qaeda members in bomb-making and use of poisons and deadly gases, sources with knowledge of the classified intelligence estimate said the report's conclusion was that this had not been satisfactorily confirmed.
"We've learned," Bush said in his speech, "that Iraq has trained al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases." But the president did not mention that when national security adviser Condoleezza Rice had referred the previous month to such training, she had said the source was al Qaeda captives..."

Warren Strobel and Jonathan Landay (Houston Chronicle):
"...a growing number of military officers, intelligence professionals and diplomats in his own government privately have deep misgivings about the administration's double-time march toward war. These officials charge that administration hawks have exaggerated evidence of the threat that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein poses -- including distorting his links to the al-Qaida terrorist network -- have overstated the amount of international support for attacking Iraq and have downplayed the potential repercussions of a new war in the Middle East. They charge that the administration squelches dissenting views and that intelligence analysts are under intense pressure to produce reports supporting the White House's argument that Saddam poses such an immediate threat to the United States that pre-emptive military action is necessary. 
"Analysts at the working level in the intelligence community are feeling very strong pressure from the Pentagon to cook the intelligence books," said one official, speaking on condition of anonymity. A dozen other officials echoed his views in interviews. No one who was interviewed disagreed. 
They cited recent suggestions by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice that Saddam and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network are working together. Rumsfeld said on Sept. 26 that the U.S. government has "bulletproof" confirmation of links between Iraq and al-Qaida members, including "solid evidence" that members of the terrorist network maintain a presence in Iraq. The facts are much less conclusive...
In fact, the officials said, there's no ironclad evidence that the Iraqi regime and the terrorist network are working together or that Saddam has ever contemplated giving chemical or biological weapons to al-Qaida, with whom he has deep ideological differences. None of the dissenting officials, who work in a number of different agencies, would agree to speak publicly, out of fear of retribution. But many of them have long experience in the Middle East and South Asia, and all spoke in similar terms about their unease with the way U.S. political leaders are dealing with Iraq..."

Anne Kornblut and Bryan Bender (Boston Globe):
"...The claims are based on a prewar allegation by a "senior terrorist operative," who said he overheard an Al Qaeda agent speak of a mission to seek biological or chemical weapons training in Iraq, according to Secretary of State Colin Powell's statement to the United Nations in February.
But intelligence specialists told the Globe last August that they have never confirmed that the training took place, or identified where it could have taken place. "The general public just doesn't have any independent way of weighing what is said," Cannistraro, the former CIA counterterrorism specialist, said. "If you repeat it enough times . . . then people become convinced it's the truth."..."

Compassiongate: Cheney repeated his outright lie compassion again in an October speech to the Heritage foundation. Click here for the transcript: "...He also had an established relationship with Al Qaida, providing training to Al Qaida members in the areas of poisons, gases, making conventional bombs..."

Also see: John B. Judis and Spencer Ackerman (The New Republic), The Independent's April 27, 2003 article, 

(being very compassionate)

"...spoke of Iraq and al Qaeda having had "high-level contacts that go back a decade"..."

Joseph Cirincioni and Dipali Mukhopadyay (Foreign Policy):
"...The October 2002 NIE warned that evidence of a connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda was largely circumstantial and noted that accounts from Iraqi defectors and Al Qaeda captives often conflicted. Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and Abu Zubaydah, the two highest-ranking Al Qaeda operatives in custody, told investigators that Osama bin Laden despised Saddam Hussein and had vetoed the idea of working with him..." 

Spencer Ackerman (Washington Monthly) via Matt Yglesias:
"...The final piece of alleged evidence the administration presented before the war came in an October 2002 letter from C.I.A. Director George Tenet to Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), then chairman of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee, stating that "we have solid reporting of senior level contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda going back a decade." But this was at best a disingenuous phrasing, the result of an administration whose senior officials placed significant pressure on its intelligence analysts to reach politically desirable conclusions. The contacts were not, as Tenet's language suggested, ongoing for the past 10 years. Most had occurred during the mid-1990s, in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum. At that time, Sudan's Islamism had sent so many spies and terrorists flooding into Khartoum that the city resembled a jihadist version of the bar scene from Star Wars. There, some of the world's most infamous terrorists, such as Hezbollah mastermind Imad Mugniyah, frequently crossed paths with foreign intelligence agents, including, Tenet claimed, Iraq's. But even if Iraqi agents had had contact with al Qaeda operatives, notes one former intelligence official, "that's what all intelligence officers do. They try to get in touch with the bad guys, the enemies, and co-opt them in some way, with money or something else"-which is quite different from forging a working relationship. After all, for decades, C.I.A. agents tried to co-opt Soviet officials. That didn't mean Langley spies grew misty when they heard the strains of "The Internationale," nor did it make Kremlin officials long for "The Star Spangled Banner."...
After the fall of Iraq, Americans had a chance to test the administration's claims: Saddam's information ministry, with all its documented secrets, is now in the hands of the Army's Third Infantry Division. Here's what we have: three reports that, together, are not nothing, but almost nothing...
But assume that all three reports are true. What do they actually reveal? That around 1998, Saddam's agents tried to build a relationship with al Qaeda. This is, it's worth noting, consistent with the prewar report that Iraqi intelligence operatives had met with al Qaeda terrorists in Khartoum. But the new information is telling in two respects. First, as far as we know, there were no significant contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda after 1998. Second, these Iraqi overtures do not appear to have been reciprocated. According to officials familiar with the debriefings of senior al Qaeda terrorists, especially 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his deputy Ramzi bin al-Shibh--who, unlike Hijazi, have no hope of gaining release from captivity-bin Laden was simply uninterested in cooperating with Saddam.
In fact, not only is there no evidence of a partnership between Saddam and al Qaeda; there is ample evidence that al Qaeda was actively hostile to Iraqi outreach. Rohan Gunaratna, director of terrorism research at Singapore's Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies and arguably the world's foremost expert on al Qaeda, has interviewed al Qaeda members personally and maintains ties with various national intelligence services. After the U.S. rout of the Taliban, he examined several thousand documents coming out of Afghanistan, including al Qaeda's video collection. After viewing 251 videos, says Gunaratna, "we could not find any evidence of al Qaeda links to Saddam Hussein or the Baghdad administration." Two videos that he watched in particular "speak of [Saddam] as a real monster and not a real Muslim," he adds. "I can't think in those videos Osama ever wanted any kind of association with Saddam Hussein." Just the facts?..."

"...said the tape "once again speaks to the people of Iraq and talks about their struggle and how he [bin Laden] is in partnership with Iraq."..."

Spencer Ackerman (Washington Monthly) via Matt Yglesias:
"...In fact, not only is there no evidence of a partnership between Saddam and al Qaeda; there is ample evidence that al Qaeda was actively hostile to Iraqi outreach. Rohan Gunaratna, director of terrorism research at Singapore's Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies and arguably the world's foremost expert on al Qaeda, has interviewed al Qaeda members personally and maintains ties with various national intelligence services. After the U.S. rout of the Taliban, he examined several thousand documents coming out of Afghanistan, including al Qaeda's video collection. After viewing 251 videos, says Gunaratna, "we could not find any evidence of al Qaeda links to Saddam Hussein or the Baghdad administration." Two videos that he watched in particular "speak of [Saddam] as a real monster and not a real Muslim," he adds. "I can't think in those videos Osama ever wanted any kind of association with Saddam Hussein." Just the facts?..."

Also see: BuzzFlash

(via the Memory Hole): 

"...Adam Boulton, Sky News (London):] One question for you both. Do you believe that there is a link between Saddam Hussein, a direct link, and the men who attacked on September the 11th?
THE PRESIDENT: I can't make that claim..."

Bryan Keefer (Spinsanity):
"...Bush has offered similar rhetorical linkages between Saddam Hussein and the terrorist attacks of September 11th. As we have noted, there is no evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime was involved in those attacks in any way. In an October 7, 2002 speech in Cincinnati, Bush announced that:
We know that Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network share a common enemy -- the United States of America. We know that Iraq and al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade. Some al Qaeda leaders who fled Afghanistan went to Iraq. These include one very senior al Qaeda leader who received medical treatment in Baghdad this year, and who has been associated with planning for chemical and biological attacks. We've learned that Iraq has trained al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases. And we know that after September the 11th, Saddam Hussein's regime gleefully celebrated the terrorist attacks on America.
Bush's statement brackets assertions implying an operational connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda -- a connection that is still hotly debated -- with vague assertions that because "that Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network share a common enemy" and that "after September the 11th, Saddam Hussein's regime gleefully celebrated the terrorist attacks," Iraq is guilty for those attacks by association.
Bush also attempted to create such an impression in a March 21 letter to the Speaker of the House and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate stating the reasons for the military invasion of Iraq:
I have also determined that the use of armed force against Iraq is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.
Again, Bush is strategically connecting Iraq to the September 11 attacks with his rhetoric, claiming that the attack on Iraq is part of a campaign against "nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001." Certainly, Bush's statements are at least partially responsible for the persistent public misperception that Iraq and Saddam were involved in the September 11th attacks..."

Dennis Hans (Take Back the Media):
"...Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC’s Hardball, made the following important point a few weeks back (click here for transcript: http://www.msnbc.com/news/859673.asp), addressing retired general William Perry Smith:
“According to the [January 2003] Knight Ridder poll . . ., the people that know the most about the situation in Iraq are least supportive of the war. The ones who are most ignorant, particularly those who believe that half the people who attacked us September 11 included Iraqi citizens, are for the war. So isn’t ‘more education’ something that stops support for the war, General? I mean, the president is not winning on the facts. He’s winning, according to the polls, on those who don’t know the facts…. Well, don’t you think the president ought to make the case, General, that the American people, tell the American people, ‘You’re wrong, half of you out there who think that there were Iraqis who attacked us September 11. They weren’t Iraqis. I’ve got some other reason why I want to attack Iraq.’ He’s never said that. Should he? Or should he allow himself to benefit from people’s ignorance?”
Straight-shooting Bush prefers to benefit from the people’s “ignorance,” though “ignorance” is not quite the correct word..."

Paul Waldman (Washington Post):
"...True or false: Saddam Hussein helped plan the Sept.11 attacks.  
As those who read or heard President Bush's recent statement on the issue are aware, that assertion is false. Then why have so many Americans -- 69 percent, according to a Washington Post survey last month -- been telling public opinion pollsters they believe it is likely that Saddam was involved?
The administration's critics think they know whom to blame for this: President Bush and those who work for him. I think they're right. But I would also name an accessory: The nation's media...
For the past year, Bush administration officials have hinted and insinuated that there's a link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. Few have been as persistent as Vice President Cheney. Some of the vice president's most outlandish statements have come in interviews on NBC's "Meet the Press." In three appearances dating back to December 2001, Cheney has said there is information suggesting that Sept. 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence official in Prague months before the attack, a story that the FBI, the CIA and the Czech government all say is fictional (Atta was in the United States at the time of the alleged meeting). But it was Cheney's most recent appearance, on Sept. 14, that brought matters to a head.
It started when host Tim Russert questioned him about the Post poll result and the basis for the public's perception of a Saddam-al Qaeda link. Cheney gave a coy answer, "I think it's not surprising that people make that connection." Russert asked directly if such a connection existed. Cheney said, "We don't know."...
The immediate consequence of the backlash over Cheney's statements was that reporters put the question directly to Bush, and the president decided to go on the record himself. "No, we've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with September the 11th," the president said on Sept. 17...
No one in the administration ever said, "Saddam helped plan Sept. 11," but the rhetoric before and after the war contained innumerable suggestions to that effect. It is hard to believe that the White House was unaware that if the words "Saddam Hussein" and "Sept. 11" were mentioned in the same sentence or the same paragraph, people would not make the link on their own.
This is an example of what scholars of rhetoric call enthymematic argumentation. In an enthymeme, the speaker builds an argument with one element removed, leading listeners to fill in the missing piece. On May 1, speaking from the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln, President Bush said, "The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11th, 2001, and still goes on. . . . With those attacks, the terrorists and their supporters declared war on the United States. And war is what they got." This is classic enthymematic argumentation: We were attacked on Sept. 11, so we went to war against Iraq. The missing piece of the argument -- "Saddam was involved in 9/11" -- didn't have to be said aloud for those listening to assimilate its message. .."

[ 1 for promoting the false link and 1 for not denying it to clearly dispel the people's ignorance (until much later)] 

has been saying how 9/11 "changed everything"

Cheney for Bush

"...I think there are a number of people out there who hope we can go back to pre-9/11 days and that somehow 9/11 was an aberration. It happened one time; it’ll never happen again.
But the president and I don’t have that luxury..."

Cheney for Bush

"...Hussein "has in the past had some dealings with terrorists, clearly," Vice President Cheney told the Council on Foreign Relations in February, mentioning Abu Nidal by name..."

James Pinkerton (Newsday):
"...Last Thursday, for example, President George W. Bush declared, "America must not forget the lessons of September 11th . . . We must fight this war until the work is done." Bush seems to be saying that we invaded Iraq because Iraq was involved in 9/11.
But, of course, that's not true, as Bush himself admitted in an off-message moment. The truth is that 9/11 gave the neoconservatives who influence Bush the excuse they needed for "regime change," which they had advocated long before 9/11. Now, after the fact, Bush is asking Americans to make the doublethink leap of faith: The United States was attacked by al-Qaida, so we had to attack Saddam Hussein. Got that?..."

Liberal Oasis:
"...Cheney responded to the opening question with this:
…in a sense, sort of the theme that comes through repeatedly for me is that 9/11 changed everything...
...I think there are a number of people out there who hope we can go back to pre-9/11 days and that somehow 9/11 was an aberration. It happened one time; it’ll never happen again.
But the president and I don’t have that luxury.
What Russert could have said:
“But none of your political opponents is ignoring the terrorist threat. They charge you are underfunding homeland security, not addressing port security and have diverted resources needed resources to Iraq.”..."

Dana Priest (Washington Post):
"...The State Department's annual Patterns of Global Terrorism report has for several years said that Iraq plans and sponsors international terrorism, but that its activities are directed mostly at the Iraqi government's domestic opponents. The reports have noted that Hussein allowed Abu Nidal, the Palestinian terrorist who died in Baghdad last month, to seek refuge and that he hosts some minor Palestinian rejectionist groups, such as the Palestinian Liberation Front, and a small Iranian militia opposed to the Iranian government.
Hussein "has in the past had some dealings with terrorists, clearly," Vice President Cheney told the Council on Foreign Relations in February, mentioning Abu Nidal by name. The latest State Department report concluded that Abu Nidal had not been involved in known acts of terrorism since the early 1990s and had "not attacked Western targets since the late 1980s."
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld last month tried to draw attention to what he said was "al Qaeda in a number of locations in Iraq." Questioned about whether members of the group were hiding in northern Iraq, which is controlled by Kurdish opponents of Hussein, Rumsfeld said, "In a vicious, repressive dictatorship that exercises near-total control over its population, it's very hard to imagine that the government is not aware of what's taking place in the country."
Rumsfeld was referring to Ansar al Islam, a group of about 150 Arabs who fled Afghanistan and came to northern Iraq through Iran after the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan. The Kurdish Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, an anti-Hussein group in northern Iraq, says it has jailed 15 to 20 al Qaeda members and was surprised that no one from the U.S. government has come to interrogate them...
"Is there any confirmed evidence of Iraq's links to terrorism? No," said Vincent M. Cannistraro, former head of the CIA's counterterrorism office.
In an interview with CNN yesterday, Brent Scowcroft, who was national security adviser to Bush's father, differed with Cheney's comments on Iraq and global terrorism.
"Vice President Cheney is a very dear friend of mine. Not all my good friends are always right," Scowcroft said. "I'm not even saying he is wrong. What I really am saying is that suppose there had been no 9/11 attack at all. Saddam Hussein would still be doing exactly what he is doing. He is not a problem for us because of terrorism."..."

Also see: Josh Marshall (Washington Monthly)

"... MR. RUSSERT: The Washington Post asked the American people about Saddam Hussein, and this is what they said: 69 percent said he was involved in the September 11 attacks. Are you surprised by that?
       VICE PRES. CHENEY: No. I think it’s not surprising that people make that connection.
MR. RUSSERT: But is there a connection?
       VICE PRES. CHENEY: We don’t know...."

Thinking it Through:
"...I don't think Rummy got the memo! Holy moly! Rumsfeld just admitted it!
Q: There have been a number of public opinion polls that show a fairly sizable percentage of the public believes that Saddam Hussein was involved in the September 11 attacks. Do you believe that?
Rumsfeld: I've not seen any indication that would lead me to believe that I could say that. We know he was giving $25,000 a family for anyone who would go out and kill innocent men, women and children. And we know of various other activities. But on that specific one, no.

...Rumsfeld also just admitted that stories like this are true. Rumsfeld and others wanted to hit Saddam within hours of the 9/11 attacks -- even though he had no connection to them:
With the intelligence all pointing toward bin Laden, Rumsfeld ordered the military to begin working on strike plans. And at 2:40 p.m., the notes quote Rumsfeld as saying he wanted "best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit S.H." – meaning Saddam Hussein – "at same time. Not only UBL" – the initials used to identify Osama bin Laden.
Now, nearly one year later, there is still very little evidence Iraq was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks. But if these notes are accurate, that didn't matter to Rumsfeld.
"Go massive," the notes quote him as saying. "Sweep it all up. Things related and not."..."

(even though Bush distanced himself from Cheney's blatant lying compassion, Bush and Cheney have been the key promoters of the 9/11 link)

"...No, we've had no evidence that Saddam was involved with the September the 11th...no, what the vice president said was that he has been involved with al-Qaeda..."

Minneapolis Star Tribune:
"...Tuesday, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld acknowledged that there is no evidence linking Saddam Hussein and Iraq to the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. Wednesday, President Bush did the same. So why do seven in 10 Americans believe there is a link? Is it just their wild imaginings? Nope: It's because the White House planted the idea and has cultivated it assiduously for months...Even in acknowledging the lack of a link, Bush didn't get everything right. Referring to Vice President Dick Cheney's appearance on "Meet the Press" last Sunday, the president said Cheney was referring only to links between Al-Qaida and Iraq, not links between Iraq and Sept. 11.
Bush is wrong. He's trying to spin what Cheney said. It's true that the vice president didn't come right out and say the Iraq-Sept. 11 link exists. But he certainly implied it in ever so many ways. He said he wasn't surprised that 70 percent of the American people believe the link exists. He said, "We don't know" if there is a link, when he could and should have said, "We have no evidence of such a link." That would have been so much more honest..."

"...We know that many of the attackers were Saudi. There was also an Egyptian in the bunch. It doesn’t mean those governments had anything to do with that attack. That’s a different proposition than saying the Iraqi government and the Iraqi intelligent service has a relationship with al-Qaeda that developed throughout the decade of the ’90s. That was clearly official policy..."

David Ensor (CNN):
"...Two senior al Qaeda figures in U.S. custody have said they do not know of any connections between their group and the former Iraqi regime, U.S. officials said Monday. But the officials downplayed the significance of the detainees' statements. The New York Times reported Monday that Abu Zubaydah and Khaled Sheikh Mohammed have told interrogators al Qaeda didn't work with Saddam Hussein's regime. U.S. officials confirm that Zubaydah said al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden rejected the idea of cooperating with Iraq. The United States has said that Zubaydah was al Qaeda's head of operations and recruitment and has accused Mohammed of being the mastermind of the September 11, 2001, attacks..."

Meet The Press transcript:
"...MR. RUSSERT: We could establish a direct link between the hijackers of September 11 and Saudi Arabia.
       VICE PRES. CHENEY: We know that many of the attackers were Saudi. There was also an Egyptian in the bunch. It doesn’t mean those governments had anything to do with that attack. That’s a different proposition than saying the Iraqi government and the Iraqi intelligent service has a relationship with al-Qaeda that developed throughout the decade of the ’90s. That was clearly official policy.
       MR. RUSSERT: There are reports that the investigation Congress did does show a link between the Saudi government and the hijackers but that it will not be released to the public.
       VICE PRES. CHENEY: I don’t know want to speculate on that, Tim, partly because I was involved in reviewing those pages. It was the judgment of our senior intelligence officials, both CIA and FBI that that material needed to remain classified. At some point, we may be able to declassify it, but there are ongoing investigations that might be affected by that release, and for that reason, we kept it classified. The committee knows what’s in there. They helped to prepare it. So it hasn’t been kept secret from the Congress, but from the standpoint of our ongoing investigations, we needed to do that.
       One of the things this points out that’s important for us to understand—so there’s this great temptation to look at these events as discreet events. We got hit on 9/11. So we can go and investigate it. It’s over with now.
       It’s done. It’s history and put it behind us..."

Compassiongate: In other words, a non-answer to a specific question! Poor dude, he does not want to "speculate on that"! What moral clarity! What compassion! Not to mention the sheer mendacity compassion on Iraq and Al-Qaeda.

Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon (New York Times):
"...In all the debate over the disputed claims in President Bush's State of the Union address, we must not forget to scrutinize an equally important, and equally suspect, reason given by the administration for toppling Saddam Hussein: Iraq's supposed links to terrorists...
In making its case for war, the administration dismissed the arguments of experts who noted that despite some contacts between Baghdad and Osama bin Laden's followers over the years, there was no strong evidence of a substantive relationship. As members of the National Security Council staff from 1994 to 1999, we closely examined nearly a decade's worth of intelligence and we became convinced, like many of our colleagues in the intelligence community, that the religious radicals of Al Qaeda and the secularists of Baathist Iraq simply did not trust one another or share sufficiently compelling interests to work together.
But Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld promised that the Bush administration had "bulletproof evidence" of a Qaeda-Iraq link, and Secretary of State Colin Powell made a similar case to the United Nations. Such claims now look as questionable as the allegation that Iraq was buying uranium in Niger.
In the 14 weeks since the fall of Baghdad, coalition forces have not brought to light any significant evidence demonstrating the bond between Iraq and Al Qaeda. Uncovering such a link should be much easier than finding weapons of mass destruction. Instead of having to inspect hundreds of suspected weapons sites around the country, military and intelligence officials need only comb through the files of Iraq's intelligence agency and a handful of other government ministries.
Our intelligence experts have been doing exactly that since April and so far there has been no report of any proof (and we can assume that any supporting information would have quickly been publicized). Of the more than 3,000 Qaeda operatives arrested around the world, only a handful of prisoners in Guantánamo — all with an incentive to please their captors — have claimed there was cooperation between Osama bin Laden's organization and Saddam Hussein's regime, and their remarks have yet to be confirmed by any of the high-ranking Iraqi officials now in American hands.
Indeed, most new reports concerning Al Qaeda and Iraq have been of another nature. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah, the two highest-ranking Qaeda operatives in custody, have told investigators that Mr. bin Laden shunned cooperation with Saddam Hussein. A United Nations team investigating global ties of the bin Laden group reported last month that they found no evidence of a Qaeda-Iraq connection.
In addition, one Central Intelligence Agency official told The Washington Post that a review panel of retired intelligence operatives put together by the agency found that although there were some ties among individuals in the two camps, "it was not at all clear there was any coordination or joint activities." And Rand Beers, the senior director for counterterrorism on the National Security Council who resigned earlier this year, has said that on the basis of the intelligence he saw, he did not believe there was a significant relationship between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda..."

"... "it's been pretty well confirmed that he did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service in Czechoslovakia last April, several months before the attack."..."

Cheney for Bush

"...With respect to 9/11, of course, we’ve had the story that’s been public out there. The Czechs alleged that Mohamed Atta, the lead attacker, met in Prague with a senior Iraqi intelligence official five months before the attack, but we’ve never been able to develop anymore of that yet either in terms of confirming it or discrediting it. We just don’t know..."