U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney has come under criticism for suggesting that former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein may have been connected to the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the Boston Globe reported today (see GSN, Sept. 15).

During an appearance Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press, Cheney said the Bush administration is learning “more and more” about pre-Sept. 11 connections between Iraq and al-Qaeda.  “We learn more and more that there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda that stretched back through most of the decade of the ‘90s,” he said.

Some congressional Democrats and intelligence analysts, however, have criticized Cheney for his allegations, the Globe reported.

“There is no credible evidence that Saddam Hussein had anything to do with 9/11,” said Senator Bob Graham (D-Fla.).  “There was no such relationship,” he said.

Cheney’s “willingness to use speculation and conjecture as facts in public presentations is appalling.  It’s astounding,” said former CIA counterterrorism specialist Vincent Cannistraro.

White House officials yesterday said they are learning more about various al-Qaeda ties to Iraq.  For example, there is evidence of a possible meeting between the head of Iraqi intelligence and terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden in Sudan in the mid-1990s, they said.  During another purported meeting in Afghanistan, Iraqi officials offered to provide biological and chemical weapons training, according to officials familiar with transcripts of interrogations of captured al-Qaeda operatives.

A recent Washington Post poll found that about 70 percent of Americans believe that Hussein probably had some connection to the Sept. 11 attacks, the Globe reported (Kornblut/Bender, Boston Globe, Sept. 16).

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