President Bush insisted yesterday that Saddam Hussein had a “relationship” with al Qaeda even though an independent commission investigating the 9/11 attacks concluded that the two did not have a “collaborative relationship.”
“The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al Qaeda is because there was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda,” the president said after a Cabinet meeting.
“This administration never said that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated between Saddam and al Qaeda,” Bush said. “We did say there were numerous contacts between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.
“There were numerous contacts between the two,” he maintained.
On Wednesday, the bipartisan panel that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks said there was “no collaborative relationship” between al Qaeda and Saddam – one of the Bush administration’s justifications for the war in Iraq.
Bin Laden asked for Iraq’s help in the mid-1990s while he was in Sudan. “A senior Iraqi intelligence officer reportedly made three visits to Sudan, finally meeting with bin Laden in 1994.”
“Bin Laden is said to have requested space to establish training camps, as well as assistance in procuring weapons,” although the Iraqis never responded, the report concluded.
The commission cited reports of contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda after bin Laden went to Afghanistan in 1996, adding, “but they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship.”
With Post Wire Services