But Cheney isn't...
Here is a Press the Meat transcript:
MR. RUSSERT: The Washington Post asked the American people about Saddam Hussein, and this is what they said: 69 percent said he was involved in the September 11 attacks. Are you surprised by that?VICE PRES. CHENEY: No. I think it’s not surprising that people make that connection.
MR. RUSSERT: But is there a connection?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: We don’t know. You and I talked about this two years ago. I can remember you asking me this question just a few days after the original attack. At the time I said no, we didn’t have any evidence of that. Subsequent to that, we’ve learned a couple of things. We learned more and more that there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda that stretched back through most of the decade of the ’90s, that it involved training, for example, on BW and CW, that al-Qaeda sent personnel to Baghdad to get trained on the systems that are involved. The Iraqis providing bomb-making expertise and advice to the al-Qaeda organization.
We know, for example, in connection with the original World Trade Center bombing in ’93 that one of the bombers was Iraqi, returned to Iraq after the attack of ’93. And we’ve learned subsequent to that, since we went into Baghdad and got into the intelligence files, that this individual probably also received financing from the Iraqi government as well as safe haven.
Now, is there a connection between the Iraqi government and the original World Trade Center bombing in ’93? We know, as I say, that one of the perpetrators of that act did, in fact, receive support from the Iraqi government after the fact. With respect to 9/11, of course, we’ve had the story that’s been public out there. The Czechs alleged that Mohamed Atta, the lead attacker, met in Prague with a senior Iraqi intelligence official five months before the attack, but we’ve never been able to develop anymore of that yet either in terms of confirming it or discrediting it. We just don’t know. [The Czechs still stand by their story on the Prague meeting]
More [links between 9/11 and 1993 WTC bombing]:
According to a report Sunday by the Associated Press, 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed "told his interrogators he had worked in 1994 and 1995 in the Philippines with Ramzi Yousef, Abdul Hakim Murad and Wali Khan Amin Shah on the foiled Bojinka plot to blow up 12 Western airliners simultaneously in Asia."Yousef, of course, was the man who plotted and executed the failed 1993 World Trade Center bombing, who entered the U.S. on an Iraqi passport the year before and whose partner in the plot, Abdul Rahman Yasin, was granted sanctuary by Saddam Hussein after the attack. Yasin is still at large.
Unmentioned by the AP, Mohammed's account of meetings with Yousef has been corroborated by Yousef's Bojinka partner, Abdul Hakim Murad. After his capture in 1995, Murad told the FBI that he and Yousef were contacted by Mohammed repeatedly during their time in the Philippines. Murad's FBI 302 witness statements detailing the contacts are reprinted in the new book "1000 Years for Revenge," by investigative reporter Peter Lance.
Another intriguing detail unmentioned by the AP, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is Ramzi Yousef's uncle.
Just last week, new documents uncovered by U.S. investigators in Iraq implicated Saddam's regime in the 1993 attack.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's Account Links 9/11 to '93 WTC Attack
It has been proven that Saddam also harbored one of the 1993 WTC bombing culprits [mentioned by Cheney as well]:
Eight years have passed since Abdul Rahman Yasin bade hasty farewell to New York and flew to Baghdad. There he initially passed the time by fielding telephone calls placed by solicitous FBI agents and finding a niche in Saddam Hussein's police state. By all appearances, Yasin has lived a quiet, secluded life there.Bush on Oct. 10 named Yasin as one of the world's 22 Most Wanted Terrorists for his role in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Bush's list is headed by Osama bin Laden and his cohorts in al-Qaida, the terror group accused of finishing the destruction of the New York landmark begun by Yasin and others.
There is no doubt about Yasin's whereabouts after the 1993 outrage. The FBI agents who perfunctorily questioned Yasin in New York and were conned by his pleasant manner quickly understood their mistake in letting him go. They got his brother to telephone Yasin in Baghdad repeatedly to ask him to come back for more questioning. Guess what? Mr. Yasin sent his regrets.
In 1998 then-FBI Director Louis Freeh said publicly that the fugitive was "hiding in his native Iraq." The Iraqi National Congress, the leading anti-Saddam movement, earlier obtained a photograph of Yasin in Baghdad and provided it to Washington. Every indication points to Yasin's not having left Iraq since then, a senior U.S. official tells me.
Will We Find Abdul Rahman Yasin?