The commission investigating the 9/11 attacks called into question on Wednesday one of President Bush’s rationales for the Iraq war, and put him on the defensive over an issue the White House was once confident would be a political plus.In questioning the extent of ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda, the panel weakened the spotty scorecard on Bush’s justifications for toppling Saddam Hussein.Banned biological and chemical weapons: none yet found. Percentage of Iraqis who view US-led forces as liberators: 2, according to a poll commissioned last month by the Coalition Provisional Authority. Number of possible Al Qaeda associates in Iraq in recent years: one, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, whose links to Al Qaeda and Saddam remain sketchy.That is the difficult reality Bush faces 15 months after ordering Iraq’s invasion— and less than five months before facing voters at home. The commission’s findings fueled fresh attacks on Bush’s credibility and the war, attacks that now seem unlikely to be silenced even if the return of sovereignty to Iraqis comes off successfully in two weeks.Bush has said that he knows of no direct involvement by Saddam and his government in the 9/11 attacks. But he has repeatedly asserted that there were ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda, a position he stuck to when he was asked about Vice-President Dick Cheney’s statement that Saddam had ‘‘long-established ties with Al Qaeda.’’Bush pointed on Tuesday to the presence in Iraq of Zarqawi, a Jordanian jehadi who sought Al Qaeda’s help in waging the anti-US insurgency after Saddam’s fall, and who has been suspected of killing of Nicholas Berg, the 26-year-old American beheaded in Iraq.The White House said on Wednesday there was a distinction between Bush’s position and the commission’s determination that Iraq did not cooperate with Al Qaeda on attacks on the US.The commission’s report did not specifically address that distinction or Zarqawi’s role. It found that an Iraqi intelligence officer met with Osama bin Laden in Sudan in 1994, but that Iraq never responded to bin Laden’s request to set up training camps and help buy arms. It said there were reports of later contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda, but ‘‘they don’t appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship.’’It quoted two senior associates of bin Laden who denied ‘‘any ties between Al Qaeda and Iraq.’’ It concluded that there never was a meeting in Prague between an Iraqi intelligence officer and Mohammed Atta, the 9/11 hijackers’ leader; in an interview in January, Cheney cited reports about the possibility of such a meeting in asserting that there was no confirmation ‘‘one way or another’’ about links between Iraq and the 9/11 attacks.The panel’s findings were the latest in a string of Iraq-related developments that has kept the White House on its toes. The administration’s former chief weapons inspector believed Iraq never had any WMDs. The Abu Ghraib abuse scandal undercut Bush’s claim to the moral high ground. In addition to imperiling the success of stabilising Iraq, the developments have kept Bush’s re-election campaign on the defensive.The White House strategy for Wednesday may have been to deny any differences with the panel. But as on other days, its goal appeared to be to stick a bandage on whatever wound it had suffered, keep moving toward June 30, when US returns sovereignty to Iraq, and then bank on its ability to redefine the election on terms more favourable to Bush.
