US President George W. Bush said on Wednesday that he had seen "no evidence" that former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was involved in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, as the White House tried to correct an assertion that Vice President Dick Cheney left extremely murky on Sunday.
Cheney, on Meet the Press on NBC-TV, was asked about polls that showed that a majority of Americans believed that Saddam was involved in the attacks.
"I think it's not surprising that people make that connection," said Cheney, who leads the hawkish wing of Bush's administration.
PHOTO: AP
Asked whether the connection exists, Cheney said, "We don't know."
He went on to describe Saddam's reported connections to al-Qaeda, connections that US intelligence analysts said were not very deep.
Bush, asked by a reporter on Wednesday about Cheney's statement, said, "No, we've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with September the 11th," a far more definitive statement than the vice president's.
"Now, what the vice president said was is that he has been involved with al-Qaeda," Bush said.
"And al-Zarqawi, an al-Qaeda operative, was in Baghdad. He's the guy that ordered the killing of a US diplomat," he said, a reference to the killing in October of Lawrence Foley on the doorstep of his home in Amman, Jordan.
Bush said Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was "still running loose, involved with the poisons network," and said, "There's no question that Saddam Hussein had al-Qaeda ties."
The White House has never said Saddam was part of the Sept. 11 plot, though from the moment of the attacks there was a search to determine whether he was connected.
Nonetheless, as Bush has described the invasion of Iraq as part of the war on terror, he has drawn a loose connection, saying that after Sept. 11, 2001, the US could no longer tolerate the kind of threat that he said Saddam posed, or risk that Saddam's weapons could be put in the hands of terrorists.
Cheney has gone the farthest in publicly discussing possible connections, and he noted on Sunday that "one of the perpetrators" of the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 "did, in fact, receive support from the Iraqi government after the fact."
He repeated an accusation that a 9-11 hijacker "met in Prague with a senior Iraqi intelligence official five months before the attack," but added, "We've never been able to develop any more of that yet, either in terms of confirming it or discrediting it."
Intelligence officials who have studied the question say there is no evidence of a meeting in Prague between any Sept. 11 plotter and Iraqi intelligence officials.
NO HUMAN ERROR: After the incident, the Coast Guard Administration said it would obtain uncrewed aerial vehicles and vessels to boost its detection capacity Authorities would improve border control to prevent unlawful entry into Taiwan’s waters and safeguard national security, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday after a Chinese man reached the nation’s coast on an inflatable boat, saying he “defected to freedom.” The man was found on a rubber boat when he was about to set foot on Taiwan at the estuary of Houkeng River (後坑溪) near Taiping Borough (太平) in New Taipei City’s Linkou District (林口), authorities said. The Coast Guard Administration’s (CGA) northern branch said it received a report at 6:30am yesterday morning from the New Taipei City Fire Department about a
IN BEIJING’S FAVOR: A China Coast Guard spokesperson said that the Chinese maritime police would continue to carry out law enforcement activities in waters it claims The Philippines withdrew its coast guard vessel from a South China Sea shoal that has recently been at the center of tensions with Beijing. BRP Teresa Magbanua “was compelled to return to port” from Sabina Shoal (Xianbin Shoal, 仙濱暗沙) due to bad weather, depleted supplies and the need to evacuate personnel requiring medical care, the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) spokesman Jay Tarriela said yesterday in a post on X. The Philippine vessel “will be in tiptop shape to resume her mission” after it has been resupplied and repaired, Philippine Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin, who heads the nation’s maritime council, said
REGIONAL STABILITY: Taipei thanked the Biden administration for authorizing its 16th sale of military goods and services to uphold Taiwan’s defense and safety The US Department of State has approved the sale of US$228 million of military goods and services to Taiwan, the US Department of Defense said on Monday. The state department “made a determination approving a possible Foreign Military Sale” to the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the US for “return, repair and reshipment of spare parts and related equipment,” the defense department’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in a news release. Taiwan had requested the purchase of items and services which include the “return, repair and reshipment of classified and unclassified spare parts for aircraft and related equipment; US Government
More than 500 people on Saturday marched in New York in support of Taiwan’s entry to the UN, significantly more people than previous years. The march, coinciding with the ongoing 79th session of the UN General Assembly, comes close on the heels of growing international discourse regarding the meaning of UN Resolution 2758. Resolution 2758, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1971, recognizes the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the “only lawful representative of China.” It resulted in the Republic of China (ROC) losing its seat at the UN to the PRC. Taiwan has since been excluded from