By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent
WASHINGTON - President Bush (news - web sites) said Wednesday there was no evidence that Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) was involved in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 — disputing an impression that critics say the administration tried to foster to justify the war against Iraq (news - web sites).
AP Photo
Reuters
Slideshow: September 11
"There's no question that Saddam Hussein had al-Qaida ties," the president said. But he also said, "We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with September the 11th."
The president's comment was the administration's firmest assertion that there is no proven link between Saddam and Sept. 11. It came after Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) on Sunday clouded the issue by saying, "It's not surprising people make that connection" between Saddam and the attacks.
Cheney, on NBC's "Meet the Press," also repeated an allegation — doubted by many in the intelligence community — that Mohamed Atta, the lead Sept. 11 attacker, met with a senior Iraqi intelligence official in Prague five months before Sept. 11.
"We've never been able to develop any more of that yet, either in terms of confirming it or discrediting it," Cheney said Sunday. However, other U.S. authorities have said information gathered on Atta's movement show he was on the U.S. East Coast when that meeting supposedly took place.
Critics of the Bush administration have pointed to statements like Cheney's as evidence that the administration was exaggerating al-Qaida's prewar links with Saddam to help justify the U.S.-led war against Iraq.
A recent poll indicated that nearly 70 percent of Americans believed the Iraqi leader probably was personally involved. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Tuesday, "I've not seen any indication that would lead me to believe that I could say that."
The administration has argued that Saddam's government had close links to al-Qaida, the terrorist network led by Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) that masterminded the Sept. 11 attacks.
On Sunday, for example, Cheney said that success in stabilizing and democratizing Iraq would strike a major blow at the "the geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault for many years, but most especially on 9-11."
Bush himself has taken to referring to Iraq as the central front in the war against terror.
NO TIES GEORGE DUBYA? WHY DIDN'T YOU SAID THAT BEFORE THE WAR !!!
WASHINGTON - President Bush (news - web sites) said Wednesday there was no evidence that Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) was involved in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 — disputing an impression that critics say the administration tried to foster to justify the war against Iraq (news - web sites).
AP Photo
Reuters
Slideshow: September 11
"There's no question that Saddam Hussein had al-Qaida ties," the president said. But he also said, "We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with September the 11th."
The president's comment was the administration's firmest assertion that there is no proven link between Saddam and Sept. 11. It came after Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) on Sunday clouded the issue by saying, "It's not surprising people make that connection" between Saddam and the attacks.
Cheney, on NBC's "Meet the Press," also repeated an allegation — doubted by many in the intelligence community — that Mohamed Atta, the lead Sept. 11 attacker, met with a senior Iraqi intelligence official in Prague five months before Sept. 11.
"We've never been able to develop any more of that yet, either in terms of confirming it or discrediting it," Cheney said Sunday. However, other U.S. authorities have said information gathered on Atta's movement show he was on the U.S. East Coast when that meeting supposedly took place.
Critics of the Bush administration have pointed to statements like Cheney's as evidence that the administration was exaggerating al-Qaida's prewar links with Saddam to help justify the U.S.-led war against Iraq.
A recent poll indicated that nearly 70 percent of Americans believed the Iraqi leader probably was personally involved. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Tuesday, "I've not seen any indication that would lead me to believe that I could say that."
The administration has argued that Saddam's government had close links to al-Qaida, the terrorist network led by Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) that masterminded the Sept. 11 attacks.
On Sunday, for example, Cheney said that success in stabilizing and democratizing Iraq would strike a major blow at the "the geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault for many years, but most especially on 9-11."
Bush himself has taken to referring to Iraq as the central front in the war against terror.
NO TIES GEORGE DUBYA? WHY DIDN'T YOU SAID THAT BEFORE THE WAR !!!
