NEW YORK CITY -- Are you confused yet? Two weeks ago, President
Bush said, "There's no question that Saddam Hussein had Al Qaeda ties." In
September 2002, he said, "You can't distinguish between Al Qaeda and
Saddam." But Bush also said two weeks ago, "We have no evidence that Saddam
Hussein was involved with the Sept. 11."
That helpful clarification came after Vice President Dick Cheney
was asked on "Meet the Press" why he thought 70 percent of Americans believe
Saddam was behind Sept. 11. "It's not surprising that people make that
connection," said the veep. Back in 2001, Cheney had said it was "pretty
well confirmed" that Iraq and the Sept. 11 hijackers had coordinated. But
most recently he said, "I don't know" if Saddam was connected to Sept. 11.
On the thoroughly discredited report that the lead hijacker
Mohammad Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in 2001,
Cheney said, "We've never been able to develop any more of that yet either
in terms of confirming it or denying it." In fact, the report has been
disavowed by Czech intelligence, and American intelligence found that Atta