The 9/11 commission reported yesterday that it had found no credible evidence that Iraq cooperated with Al Qaeda in the Sept. 11 attacks. The conclusion contradicts repeated statements by President Bush and Vice President Cheney. As recently as Monday Cheney said Iraq “had long-established ties with al-Qaida.”

In the lead up to the invasion of Iraq, top Bush administration officials repeatedly cited the purported links between Iraq and Al Qaida as a reason to go to war. In November 2002, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said “Within a week, or a month, Saddam could give his weapons of mass destruction to Al Qaida.”

The administration efforts to convince the public of the Al Qaeda-Iraq link though was highly successful. A Washington Post poll last year found 69 per cent of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks.

In addition the 9/11 panel Khalid Sheikh Mohamed and Osama Bin Laden originally envisioned an attack involving the hijacking of 10 planes and crashing them into the World Trade Center, Pentagon, the FBI and CIA headquarters, the White House, buildings in California and Washington state as well as nuclear plants.