Between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. Even though a CNN poll just last month found that 43% of US citizens think Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the 11 September terrorist attacks. The US media and the Bush government both have a lot of soul-searching to do on this one.
Let's recall Dick Cheney's words, just for starters:
In a television interview in September 2003, he said there was "a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda that stretched back through most of the decade of the '90s... al-Qaeda sent personnel to Baghdad to get trained... the Iraqis providing bomb-making expertise and advice to the al-Qaeda organisation."
It was "clearly official policy" on the part of Iraq, he said.
The Senate Intelligence Committee Report (PDF here) is way overdue for starters. As with the 9/11 Commission, the Bush team have done everything possible to delay these findings and confuse US citizens about the truth.
It says that debriefings conducted since the invasion of Iraq "indicate that Saddam issued a general order that Iraq should not deal with al-Qaeda. No post-war information suggests that the Iraqi regime attempted to facilitate a relationship with [Osama] Bin Laden.Via the BBC.
"Saddam Hussein was distrustful of al-Qaeda... refusing all requests from al-Qaeda to provide material or operational support."
Administration confusion
The report supports the intelligence community's finding that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi - the man who was al-Qaeda's chief operative in Iraq between the invasion and his death in June this year - was indeed in Baghdad in 2002.
Saddam Hussein was distrustful of al-Qaeda and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from al-Qaeda to provide material or operational support
Senate report
Senate report 29kb
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'Terror war' loses direction
Quick guide: Al-Qaeda
Was this an Iraqi link to al-Qaeda?
No, says the report. Far from harbouring him, Saddam's regime was trying to find and capture him.
But the Bush administration has a way, still, of confusing this issue.
As recently as 21 August this year, President Bush said that Saddam "had relations with Zarqawi".
