In Afghanistan you had two parties (the "Afghan Arabs" and the native Afghans) who shared a mutual hatred for the Soviets and a deep commitment to conservative, tribal Islam. If not close allies, they were at least comfortable with each other (until later).
Though both Iraq and Al Quaeda wished us harm, there isn't any evidence that the ever collaborated on any sort of joint venture. Saddam was a secular tyrant, and OBL is a fundamentalist wack-job. Both of them hated the US, but their very different ideologies made them mutually antagonistic to one another. Besides which, Saddam didn't trust anyone whom he did not directly control or otherwise have some hold over. If he'd wanted terrorist proxies there were candidates in Palestine who were much better developed as allies and much closer to home.
Bush himself has come out denying that there was a Saddam/Al Quaeda link, we would do well to drop this false lead before it becomes the next Democrat talking point.
Let us clarify this:
The President said there was no evidence of a link between Iraq and 9-11. He has NEVER stated that there was "no link" between Saddam and Al-queda. In fact, independant evidence suggests otherwise.
What you posted IS, in fact, a "false lead".
Absolutely false. Bush has said that he has no hard evidence that Saddam had any direct involvement in 9/11. He said, practically in the same breath, that there are and were links between Saddam and Al Qaeda.
Bullfeathers. This is mixing apples and oranges: the apple being a Saddam/Al Qaeda link and the orange being the Saddam/September 11 link. Bush never denied there was a Saddam/Al Qaeda link. There is evidence that Iraq harbored at least one top Al Qaeda operative who needed medical attention. There was a camp in North Iraq with an Al Qaeda-linked group (I forget the specific name of the group...). No one seriously argues that camp existed without the knowledge and tolerance of Saddam.
Despite the genuflections of the mainstream press to that wrong-headed notion, the adminstration NEVER said Saddam was involved in 9/11. There is a huge difference between being allied--in ideology and goals--with Al Qaeda and being intimately involved in every operation thereof.
There was not a link between Adolph Hitler and Pearl Harbor, either. But the need to crush both Japan and Germany wasn't argued seriously by anyone in the 1940s. But the liberals seem to have to learn the lessons of history over and over again.
False statement. Bush has said there is no hard evidence linking Saddam with 9-11. There is circumstantial evidence that Saddam knew of the plan and may have provided assistance. The best we have is a Czech intel report of M. Atta, the “field commander” meeting with Saddam’s spy chief in Prague several months before 9-11. The CIA has said that they don’t consider that evidence enough to prove a link since they have no way of verifying that meeting took place or what may have been discussed.
There is plenty of very hard evidence linking Saddam with Islamic terror groups including UBL and with numerous terror attacks around the world including the 1993 WTC bombing which was most likely funded and supported by Saddam. One of the perps in that attack was actually an Iraqi spook who had Kuwaiti papers forged and placed in the Kuwaiti state records during Saddam's reign of terror there in 1990 to make this guy look to be a native-born Kuwaiti citizen. He was setting up sleepers and false-flag operatives even then.