Abstract

Al Qaeda Disconnect

The neoconservative's purported link between former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and terrorist group Al Qaeda is crumbling. Two days after United States Vice President Cheney asserted that Hussein "had long-established ties with Al Qaeda" and one day after President George W. Bush echoed his second-in-command, the independent bipartisan 9/11 commission said that no such bond existed. With one paragraph, the commission decimates a primary rationale of Bush's war on Iraq. Before the invasion, Bush argued that Hussein was an immediate threat and war was necessary because Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, and Hussein was in cahoots with Al Qaeda and at any moment could slip terrorists weapons of mass destruction to use against the U.S. The day before the 9/11 commission released these reports, a reporter asked Bush to provide "the best evidence" for claiming that Hussein was in league with Al Qaeda. Bush made a reference to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a terrorist operating in Iraq. Earlier in 2004, the Kurds intercepted a letter that Zarqawi supposedly sent to Al Qaeda asking for help fomenting civil war in Iraq. According to U.S. officials, Al Qaeda turned down the request. This exchange, if it indicates anything, is evidence of a division between the two terrorist camps.