After telling a national radio audience last week that there was no connection between the World Trade Center attacks and Saddam Hussein, "Meet the Press" host Tim Russert got an earful on Sunday from Vice President Dick Cheney, who outlined a mountain of evidence tying Iraq to the 9/11 catastrophe.
Recalling that he had told Russert two years ago that he knew of no Iraqi link to the attack, Cheney said Sunday, "Subsequent to that, we've learned a couple of things."
The vice president contended that more recent evidence indicates "that "\there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda that stretched back through most of the decade of the '90s, that it involved training, for example."
Though he did not specifically mention the South Baghdad terrorist training camp Salman Pak, where radical Islamists rehearsed 9/11-style hijackings on a Soviet-era Tupelov 154 airliner, Cheney noted that "al-Qaeda sent personnel to Baghdad to get trained on the systems that are involved."
Cheney also cited reports of a meeting between lead 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague, Czechoslovakia, just months before the attacks, saying that U.S. intelligence has not yet been able confirm or discredit the information.
In perhaps his most startling remarks, the vice president became the first White House official to argue that there was a link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda's attempt to destroy the World Trade Center in 1993, telling Russert:
"We know, for example, in connection with the original World Trade Center bombing in '93, that one of the bombers was Iraqi, returned to Iraq after the attack of '93. And we've learned subsequent to that, since we went into Baghdad and got into the intelligence files, that this individual probably also received financing from the Iraqi government as well as safe haven."
The vice president might have also mentioned that Ramzi Yousef, who masterminded the 1993 attack and whose laptop computer contained plans to crash U.S. airliners into the World Trade Center and Pentagon, entered the U.S. with an Iraqi passport.
After his capture in 1995, the FBI flew Yousef over the World Trade Center and reminded him that his plan to destroy the Twin Towers had not succeeded. His reported response: "Not yet."
Cheney also declined to mention that Manhattan U.S. District Judge Harold Baer ruled in May that "Iraq collaborated in or supported bin Laden/al Qaeda's terrorist acts of September 11." Baer's finding was issued in response to a civil lawsuit brought against Iraq by two families of 9/11 victims.
Last Wednesday Russert insisted to radio host Don Imus: "No one will say there was a direct involvement of Saddam Hussein in Sept. 11. ... There's no direct link that can be substantiated."
The full exchange between Russert and Vice President Cheney on the evidence tying Iraq to 9/11 went like this:
RUSSERT: The Washington Post asked the American people about Saddam Hussein, and this is what they said: 69 percent said he was involved in the September 11 attacks. Are you surprised by that?
CHENEY: No. I think it's not surprising that people make that connection.
RUSSERT: But is there a connection?
CHENEY: We don't know. You and I talked about this two years ago. I can remember you asking me this question just a few days after the original attack. At the time I said no, we didn't have any evidence of that. Subsequent to that, 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, that it involved training, for example, on BW and CW, that al-Qaeda sent personnel to Baghdad to get trained on the systems that are involved. The Iraqis providing bomb-making expertise and advice to the al-Qaeda organization.
We know, for example, in connection with the original World Trade Center bombing in '93, that one of the bombers was Iraqi, returned to Iraq after the attack of '93. And we've learned subsequent to that, since we went into Baghdad and got into the intelligence files, that this individual probably also received financing from the Iraqi government as well as safe haven.
Now, is there a connection between the Iraqi government and the original World Trade Center bombing in '93? We know, as I say, that one of the perpetrators of that act did, in fact, receive support from the Iraqi government after the fact. With respect to 9/11, of course, we've had the story that's been public out there. The Czechs alleged that Mohamed Atta, the lead attacker, met in Prague with a senior Iraqi intelligence official five months before the attack, but we've never been able to develop any more of that yet either in terms of confirming it or discrediting it. We just don't know. [End of Excerpt]
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Bush Administration
Saddam Hussein/Iraq
War on Terrorism
Editor's note:
Gerald Posner reveals how Bill Clinton could have prevented 9/11 - Click here for details!
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