no link between iraq and al-qaeda... get it?
the official inquiry into the 11 september 2001 attacks in the usa has said there was no link between iraq and al-qaeda. the bush administration as recently as hours ago have been using alleged contacts between the two as a reason for attacking, invading and occupying iraq. just this past monday vice president dick cheney said saddam hussein had «long-established ties» with al-qaeda (as usual, he was speaking among friends, in a forum that did not allow critics to question the assertion) even though the claim has been disproven since it was first uttered!
back in january, the prestigious carnegie endowment said: «the most intensive searching over the last two years has produced no solid evidence of a co-operative relationship between saddam hussein's government and al-qaeda.»
david kay, the former chief weapons inspector, came to the same conclusion.
in january the american secretary of state, colin powell, announced that he had seen "no smoking gun [or] concrete evidence" of ties between saddam hussein and al-qaeda.
in fact even bush himself, when he was asked baldly in january whether he believed there was a link between saddam hussein and 9/11, said «i can't make that claim.»
yet somehow the administration bush leads has convinced the vast majority of americans that exactly the opposite is the case. a poll conducted by the university of maryland in april found that 57% of americans believe iraq was substantially supporting al-qaeda before the 11 September 2001 attacks or was involved in the attacks themselves. and that number was hardly changed from a similar poll a year earlier.
further reading: key findings on al-qaeda; read the commission's preliminary statement on al-qaeda.
sources: the beeb and sky news.
