Paul Wolfowitz says in an interview with Nancy Collins of the Laura Ingraham Show: “I’m not sure even now that I would say Iraq had something to do with [9/11]. I think what the realization to me is—the fundamental point was that terrorism had reached the scale completely different from what we had thought of it up until then. And that it would only get worse when these people got access to weapons of mass destruction which would be only a matter of time.” [Laura Ingraham Show, 8/1/2003]
August 7, 2003-August 11, 2003: Seventy Percent of Americans Misled by Bush Administration Insinuations of Iraq-9/11 Links
According to a Washington Post survey, 7 in 10 Americans believe that it is “likely or very likely Saddam Hussein was involved in September 11.” Sixty-two percent of Democrats, 80 percent of Republicans and 67 percent of independents polled suspect there is a link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11. Additionally, eight in 10 Americans believe that it was likely that Saddam had provided assistance to al-Qaeda, and a similar percentage say the believe he developed weapons of mass destruction. [Washington Post, 9/6/2003]
September 7, 2003: Rice Is ‘Absolutely’ Convinced There Was Link Between Al-Qaeda and Iraqi Government
National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice says there is “absolutely” a connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda “[W]e know that there was training of al-Qaeda in chemical and perhaps biological warfare. We know that [Abu Musab] al-Zarqawi was networked out of there, this poisons network that was trying to spread poisons throughout…. And there was an Ansar al-Islam, which appears also to try to be operating in Iraq. So yes, the al-Qaeda link was there.” [Fox News Sunday, 9/7/2003; Global Views, 9/26/2003; US House Committee on Government Reform, 3/16/2004]
September 14, 2003: Cheney Insists Iraq Supported Al-Qaeda and WMDs Have Been Found in Iraq
Vice President Dick Cheney appears on Meet the Press and tells host Tim Russert that Iraq’s support for al-Qaeda was “clearly official policy.” As evidence, he cites the alleged meeting between Mohamed Atta and Iraqi diplomat Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani (see April 8, 2001). Cheney also insists that the two trailers found in Baghdad (see April 19, 2003 and May 9, 2003) were mobile biological weapon factories, even though he was told by David Kay, the head of the Iraq Survey Group, that that was probably not the case (see July 29, 2003). [Meet the Press, 9/14/2003; Isikoff and Corn, 2006, pp. 313]
September 14, 2003: Cheney Claims Atta’s Alleged Meeting in Prague Has Neither Been Confirmed nor Refuted
Vice President Dick Cheney brings up the long discredited claim that Mohamed Atta had met with a senior Iraqi intelligence official in April of 2001. He says, “With respect to 9/11, of course, we’ve had the story… 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.” [Democracy Now!, 9/16/2003; Washington Post, 9/29/2003] But at the same time, he cites the meeting to support his contention that Iraq’s support for al-Qaeda was official government policy (see September 14, 2003).
September 14, 2003-September 17, 2003: Cheney Links Iraq to 9/11; Bush, Rumsfeld, and Rice All Disavow Cheney’s Claim
Vice President Cheney says on NBC’s Meet the Press, “I think it’s not surprising that people make [the] connection” between Iraq and 9/11. He adds, “If we’re successful in Iraq… then we will have struck a major blow right at the heart of The Base, if you will, the geographic base of the terrorists who had us under assault now for many years, but most especially on 9/11.” [Meet the Press, 9/14/2003] However, two days later, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld states that he hasn’t “seen any indication that would lead” him to believe there was an Iraq-9/11 link. [Associated Press, 9/16/2003] National Security Adviser Rice says the administration has never accused Hussein of directing the 9/11 attacks. [Reuters, 9/16/2003] The next day, Bush also disavows the Cheney statement, stating, “We’ve had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with September the 11th… [but]
there’s no question that Saddam Hussein has al-Qaeda ties.” [CBS News, 9/17/2003; Washington Post, 9/18/2003]
September 28, 2003: Condoleezza Rice Links Iraq to Al-Qaeda Again
Appearing on Meet the Press, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice presumes to link Hussein to Osama bin Laden. “Saddam Hussein—no one has said that there is evidence that Saddam Hussein directed or controlled 9/11, but let’s be very clear, he had ties to al-Qaeda, he had al-Qaeda operatives who had operated out of Baghdad.” [MSNBC, 9/28/2003; US House Committee on Government Reform, 3/16/2004]
November 14, 2003: Neoconservative Magazine’s Attempt to Revive Iraq-Al-Qaeda Link Is Immediately Discredited
On November 14, 2003, the neoconservative magazine the Weekly Standard prints a cover story by Stephen Hayes entitled “Case Closed” that attempts to revive allegations that there was a link between the Iraqi government and al-Qaeda. It claims to have new evidence of the link, based on a “top secret US government memorandum obtained by The Weekly Standard.” It quotes extensively from a classified October 27, 2003, 16-page memo written by Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith. [Weekly Standard, 11/14/2003] But the story is immediately discredited. The next day, the Defense Department issues a press release stating, “news reports that the Defense Department recently confirmed new information with respect to contacts between al-Qaeda and Iraq… are inaccurate.” But several conservative media outlets, including the New York Post, the Washington Times, and Fox News, run with the story anyway. Conservative New York Times columnist William Safire also endorses the story. Most of the outlets that report on the story are owned by Rupert Murdoch, who also owns the Weekly Standard. However, most other outlets either ignore the story or write articles completely dismissing it. [Slate, 11/18/2003; Editor & Publisher, 11/18/2003] For instance, on November 19, Newsweek posts an article called “Case Decidedly Not Closed.” It notes that the Feith memo “is mostly based on unverified claims that were first advanced by some top Bush administration officials more than a year ago—and were largely discounted at the time by the US intelligence community (see August 2002), according to current and former US intelligence officials.” [Newsweek, 11/19/2003] The New York Times and Washington Post also print stories largely discrediting the Weekly Standard piece. [Slate, 11/18/2003] But nonetheless, in January 2004, Vice President Cheney will cite the article and call it the “best source of information” about the supposed pre-war Iraq-al-Qaeda link (see January 9, 2004).
December 14, 2003: Dubious Document Links Mohamed Atta to Saddam Hussein’s Government
The London Daily Telegraph reports that it has obtained a copy of a memo purportedly written to Saddam Hussein by Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti, the former head of the Iraqi Intelligence Service, describing a three-day “work program” Atta participated in at Abu Nidal’s base in Baghdad. The memo, dated July 1, 2001, also includes a report about a shipment sent to Iraq by way of Libya and Syria. The Telegraph asserts that the shipment is “believed to be uranium.” Future Iraqi interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi backs the validity of the document. [Daily Telegraph, 12/14/2003] But Newsweek quickly reports that the document is probably a fabrication, citing both the FBI’s detailed Atta timeline and a document expert who, amongst other things, distrusts an unrelated second “item” on the same document, which supports a discredited claim that Iraq sought uranium from Niger. [Newsweek, 12/17/2003] Very few media outlets pick up the Telegraph’s story. It will later be revealed that many forged documents purporting a link between Iraq and al-Qaeda were left in places for US troops to find (see Shortly After April 9, 2003).
Early 2004: Bin Laden and Al-Zarqawi Begin Exploring Idea of Allying Their Forces
In 2005, Hutaifa Azzam, son of Abdullah Azzam, Osama bin Laden’s mentor and a longtime acquaintance of militant leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, says al-Zarqawi had “no relations with Osama until he left to Iraq. His relation with Osama started [in 2004] through the Internet.” [Bergen, 2006, pp. 363-364] The Atlantic Monthly will later report that negotiations between al-Zarqawi and bin Laden about an alliance between them begin in early 2004. Al-Zarqawi will pledge loyalty to bin Laden in October, “but only after eight months of often stormy negotiations” (see October 17, 2004). [Atlantic Monthly, 6/8/2006]
