The missing connection between Iraq, al Qaeda

OUR OPINION: REPORT SHOULD DISPEL MYTH USED TO JUSTIFY
IRAQ INVASION

The panel investigating the Sept. 11 terror attacks
yesterday offered a definitive statement that should
once and for all lay to rest one of the most pernicious
myths surrounding those tragic events. "We have no
credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on
attacks against the United States," the staff report
declared, directly contradicting a Bush administration
view widely used to justify the Iraq invasion.

Nonetheless, many Americans will probably continue to
believe that Iraq had a hand in the 9/11 attacks. This
should come as no surprise, given the administration’s
persistent efforts to trumpet a connection that
apparently never existed. As recently as Monday, Vice
President Dick Cheney told an audience in Orlando that
the Iraqi dictator "had long-established ties with al
Qaeda."

Last fall, Mr. Cheney referred to what he called a
credible intelligence report that Mohamed Atta, one of
the Sept. 11 hijackers, had met at least once in Prague
with a senior Iraqi intelligence official a few months
before the attacks.

The panel report, however, said that meeting never
happened. Osama bin Laden himself met with an Iraqi
intelligence officer in 1994 and asked to establish
training camps in Iraq, "but Iraq apparently never
responded," the report states. If subsequent,
unconfirmed contacts occurred between Iraq and al Qaeda,
"they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative
relationship."

As long as the administration insists on the 9/11
connection, its solution to the Iraqi problem will be
based on false assumptions. The 9/11 panel’s report,
based on the findings of U.S. intelligence and
unencumbered by political considerations, should be the
last word on the subject.

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