WASHINGTON, 18 September 2003 — US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said on Tuesday the Bush administration had never accused Saddam Hussein of directing the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
Her statement, in an interview recorded for broadcast on ABC’s “Nightline,” came despite long-standing administration charges the ousted Iraqi leader was linked to the Al-Qaeda network accused of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Democrats have accused the administration of creating a “false impression” at the heart of a widespread US public belief that Saddam had a personal role in the attacks.
“We have never claimed that Saddam Hussein ... had either direction or control of 9/11,” Rice said when asked about the public perception of a link.
“What we have said is that this is someone who supported terrorists, helped to train them (and) was a threat in this region that we were not prepared to tolerate.”
Defending Saddam’s ouster, she said he represented a threat in “a region from which the 9/11 threat emerged.”
A Washington Post poll this month found 69 percent of Americans believed Saddam was personally involved in the attacks, despite the lack of significant evidence.
As they campaigned for support to oust Saddam, Bush and aides accused the former Iraqi president of being linked to Al-Qaeda, often in ways that recalled the suicide hijackings that killed about 3,000 people.
“You can’t distinguish between Al-Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror,” Bush said in September 2002.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in congressional testimony, “There have been a number of contacts between Iraq and Al-Qaeda over the years. We know Saddam has ordered acts of terror himself.”
Richard Perle, an influential Pentagon adviser before the war, said in a New York Times opinion article in December 2001 that evidence was “convincing” that an Iraqi intelligence agent had met with Sept. 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta. The CIA has failed to verify the report, attributed to Czech officials, of a meeting. Vice President Dick Cheney, interviewed on Sunday by NBC’s “Meet the Press,” said it was not possible to confirm or discredit the report, and he left open the possibility of a Saddam link to the attacks. Cheney said, “It’s not surprising” the public would believe Saddam was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks.
“We don’t know,” he said. “We’ve learned a couple of things. We learned more and more that there was a relationship between Iraq and Al-Qaeda that stretched back through most of the decade of the 90s.”
