The Sept. 11 commission’s debunking of a link between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein puts the last nail in the coffin of the Bush administration’s case for going to war in Iraq.

When Colin Powell made his now infamous presentation to the U.N. Security Council on Feb. 5, 2003, explaining why Saddam Hussein was a threat, he alleged such links. He suggested that Saddam Hussein in some unspecified way colluded or strategized with al Qaeda.

Like his allegations to the Security Council about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, Powell’s allegation of an Iraqi/al Qaeda connection turned out to be fantasy.

The falsity of the weapons allegation became apparent after U.S. forces unsuccessfully scoured Iraq after invading. But the falsity of the allegation of an Iraq/al Qaeda link had not been demonstrated until the Sept. 11 commission.

The Bush administration relied heavily on reports of an April 2001 meeting in Prague between Iraqi officials and Sept. 11 hijacker pilot Mohamad Atta. The commission finds no evidence that such a meeting took place. It thinks Atta was in the United States at the time. The administration has revealed no other specific information to substantiate a Saddam/al Qaeda connection.

The commission pointed out that politically Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden are on different wavelengths. Bin Laden relies on his fundamentalist interpretation of Islam. Saddam was always denounced by fundamentalist Islamists as a secularist who suppressed Islam in Iraq. The commission even recounts aid by Osama bin Laden to Islamist opponents of Saddam Hussein in northern Iraq.

The administration is not asserting that Iraq had anything to do with the Sept. 11 attacks. It had already conceded it has no evidence of that. The issue is whether there were contacts between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda that showed a working relationship. The administration relied on that allegation as a reason for war. The Sept. 11 commission says there were no contacts that can be called “collaborative.”

Incredibly, the administration is challenging the commission’s finding, still claiming a Saddam/al Qaeda relationship. Vice President Dick Cheney says he has information the commission did not see, but he won’t say what it is. No one accuses the commission of doing a slipshod job.

The administration realizes that its claim of a Saddam/al Qaeda connection is their last possible argument that Iraq presented the kind of danger President Bush claimed for going to war.

Unless Cheney discloses credible information, however, the administration’s record of prevarication on Iraq leaves little choice but to conclude he has none.

With the public increasingly weary of the Iraq war, and skeptical about the reasons, the administration is grasping at straws. Forced to extend tours of duty, the administration is desperate for reasons to give parents why their children should be sent to a country where they face death from random bombings. The administration finds it harder and harder to say with a straight face that their children are defending America.

The Sept. 11 commission report comes as opinion in Iraq has turned sharply against us. The abuse of Iraqi detainees has enflamed Arab opinion. The claim that we are bringing democracy is greeted with derision. Iraqi children dance to rejoice when U.S. servicemen are blown up in tanks.

The Sept. 11 commission report shows that the administration had no case for going to war in Iraq. The administration should face the truth.