Cheney still says Saddam had al Qaeda ties

WARRENTON, Mo. – The phrases vary. Some days, Vice President Dick Cheney says Saddam Hussein had “long-established” ties to al Qaeda. Other days, he says the one-time Iraqi dictator “had a relationship” with the terrorist group.

But the underlying message remains unchanged – Cheney plants the idea that Saddam was allied with the group responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Although the extent of the al Qaeda-Saddam relationship – and even if it actually existed – has been widely disputed, Cheney proceeds with his claim with a nary a nod toward such questions.

And in doing so, he draws a line from the war in Iraq, on which public opinion is divided, to the larger war on terrorism, for which President Bush wins greater support.

“When voters look at Iraq as a stand-alone issue … it is a horrible situation for the president,” said Charles Cook, a nonpartisan political analyst in Washington. “But when it is woven into the fabric of a global war on terrorism, people are more accepting of it as the price we have to pay.”

Cheney slips his reference to Saddam and al Qaeda into his litany of Saddam’s offenses: the regime’s production and use of chemical weapons against enemies; support for the families of suicide bombers; Iraq’s defiance of various U.N. resolutions.

Each has largely been established and is subject of little debate – with the exception of the tie to al Qaeda.

The bipartisan commission that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks said it had found no evidence of a “collaborative relationship” between Saddam and the terrorist organization led by Osama bin Laden. Its staff has said it had found “no credible evidence” that Iraq had cooperated with al Qaeda in targeting the United States.

To back up Cheney’s claim of an al Qaeda-Saddam “relationship,” his aides point to the presence in pre-invasion Iraq of Abu Musab al Zarqawi, a Jordanian-born militant believed to be behind much of the insurgency in post-war Iraq. But while al Zarqawi is widely thought to have had ties to bin Laden’s group – the vice president calls him “a senior al Qaeda associate” – the extent of his links to Saddam, if any, has never been established.

The vice president’s staff notes that former CIA Director George Tenet testified in Congress about a relationship between Saddam and al Qaeda. And, his aides say, Cheney has been careful to not state that Saddam was behind the Sept. 11 attack. Still, Cheney’s references to an al Qaeda-Saddam “relationship” may obscure that distinction for many voters.

Surveys of Americans consistently have found large numbers who say Saddam was personally involved in the Sept. 11 attacks, despite repeated declarations by a variety of investigators to the contrary. As recently as June, a Gallup Poll found that 44 percent said Saddam was personally tied to the terrorist strikes; 51 percent said he was not.

A senior Republican who served in top White House positions during the Ford and Reagan administrations cited the Gallup findings in discussing Cheney’s campaign comments on al Qaeda and Saddam. The vice president, the senior Republican said, is “talking about something that is credible with the American people, despite the intelligence. And the intelligence community is so under attack that he can say whatever he wants.”

“What he gets out of it is making the case even stronger for why we went into Iraq, and it fits a pattern of what the American people want to believe,” said the Republican, who requested anonymity because his comments could be interpreted as being critical of the vice president, with whom he has worked in the past.

Many Democrats are infuriated by what they view as an effort by Cheney to exaggerate the link between al Qaeda and Saddam.

“This is one of his major issues. He tries to blur the lines between al Qaeda and 9/11, and Saddam Hussein and Iraq,” said Michael B. Feldman, a senior aide four years ago to Al Gore who is not active in this year’s presidential race.

“From the very beginning of the effort to sell the (Iraq) war, this has been Cheney’s role. He’s also … at odds with the facts. … That doesn’t stop him. I don’t think it’s an accident. I don’t think it’s a slip of the tongue.”

Polls have found that overall, Cheney is one of the least popular vice presidents in recent administrations. But he is a major draw among the Republican faithful. The Bush re-election campaign frequently sends him to the most closely contested states, where he is dispatched to communities that supported the Republican ticket four years ago.

In the speeches he delivers – at rallies, at “town-hall” question-and-answer sessions and at small, round-table meetings to audiences made up almost entirely of loyal supporters admitted only by invitation – the war in Iraq and the fight against terrorism are woven throughout. They are the vice president’s central, inseparable themes. And he delivers his message in a rich baritone and no-nonsense manner.

He delivered one of his typical speeches Friday, at a dusty fairgrounds in Warrenton, about 40 miles west of St. Louis. Speaking of Saddam, Cheney said, “He provided safe haven for terrorists over the years. He was making $25,000 payments to the families of suicide bombers, and he had a relationship with al Qaeda, and Iraq for years was carried by our State Department as a state sponsor of terrorism.”

Hours later, he made similar comments at a fund-raising dinner in Tulsa, Okla.

Paul Light, a professor of public service at New York University and author of several books on the vice presidency, offered a succinct explanation for Cheney’s effort to connect Saddam to al Qaeda: He does it, Light said, “because he can.”

He added: “It’s a statement to the party faithful. He doesn’t say Saddam Hussein planned 9/11 and funded it. There’s no evidence of that. But he pushes the envelope, for sure.”