Bush firm on Iraq, Qaeda link

WASHINGTON -- President Bush, who repeatedly cited ties between Baghdad and Al Qaeda as a justification for invading Iraq, defended that assertion yesterday after the Sept. 11 commission said it found no evidence that Saddam Hussein had anything to do with the terrorist attacks on the United States, or that he had more than minimal contact with the terrorist group.

Bush insisted he had never blamed Iraq for the Sept. 11 attacks. "The administration never said that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated between Saddam and Al Qaeda," Bush told reporters after a Cabinet meeting at the White House.

But Bush officials did repeatedly emphasize reported contacts between the Iraqi government and members of Al Qaeda during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, and made no effort to stop speculation that both were involved in the hijacking plot. In his letter to Congress the day the United States invaded Iraq, March 18, 2003, Bush specifically mentioned defending the nation against the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks as part of his motivation for war.

Yesterday, Vice President Dick Cheney raised the possibility that evidence may yet emerge of an Iraqi role in Sept. 11, saying the bipartisan commission simply "failed to find any evidence" either proving it or disproving it.

"The notion that there is no relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda just simply is not true," Cheney said in an interview on CNBC. He downplayed the commission's credibility, saying it is likely the commissioners did not know about information he has seen pointing to strong ties between Hussein and the group.

The final report by the Sept. 11 commission -- due for publication by the end of July -- is among several potential political flashpoints in the days ahead, amid ongoing violence in Iraq, the handover of sovereignty to Iraqi leaders, and continuing investigations into Iraqi prisoner abuse and intelligence failures that led US officials to believe they would find weapons of mass destruction immediately after the invasion.

Over time, Bush has faced mounting questions about the reasons he gave for going to war -- especially from his chief rival, Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, the presumptive Democratic nominee. With less than five months left until the presidential election, Kerry, who voted to authorize the war, hopes to narrow the president's lead in most polls showing the public trusts Bush more on questions of terrorism. Kerry yesterday characterized the Sept. 11 commission's report as further evidence Bush "misled" the public with his prewar reasoning, and diverted resources for combating terrorism.

"The president and the vice president have asserted on a number of occasions, have asserted very directly to the American people, that the war against Al Qaeda is the war in Iraq, and on any number of occasions, the president's made it clear that the front line of the war against Al Qaeda is in Iraq," Kerry told reporters as he arrived in Detroit for a campaign event. "It is clear that the president owes the American people a fundamental explanation about why he rushed to war for a purpose that it now turns out is not supported by the facts."

Specifically, the commission report found that while Al Qaeda members contacted Hussein seeking support, the Iraqi leader did not respond to their requests. "There have been reports that contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda also occurred after bin Laden returned to Afghanistan, but they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship," the report said.

Bush and Cheney both seemed to disagree, although both the administration and the commissioners sought to minimize their differences yesterday.

"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," Bush said. "I always said that Saddam Hussein was a threat. He was a threat because he had used weapons of mass destruction against his own people. He was a threat because he was a sworn enemy to the United States of America, just like Al Qaeda. He was a threat because he had terrorist connections -- not only Al Qaeda connections, but other connections to terrorist organizations."

Bush carefully dissected his own past remarks, pointing out that while he never blamed Iraq for Sept. 11, "We did say there were numerous contacts between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda -- for example, Iraqi intelligence agents met with bin Laden."

In his 2003 letter to Congress announcing the Iraq war, Bush wrote that one reason for invasion was "to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on Sept. 11, 2001."

This past Monday, Cheney described Hussein's connections to Al Qaeda as part of the historical framework that led to Sept. 11, saying the Bush administration inherited a nation at risk in 2001.

"Fifteen of the 19 hijackers who would attack our country on 9/11 came from Saudi Arabia," Cheney said during a speech in Orlando, Fla., describing world affairs in 2001. "In Iraq, Saddam Hussein was in power, overseeing one of the bloodiest regimes of the 20th century. He had started two wars -- produced and used weapons of mass destruction against Iran and the Kurds, and was in repeated violation of UN Security Council resolutions. He was a patron of terrorism."

Anne E. Kornblut can be reached at akornblut@globe.com. Glen Johnson contributed to this report.