Iraq fundamentals, part 3

National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States
A snippit from the 9-11 commission's report. The overview is that Iraq and Al-Qaeda had only "anecdotal" connections--in other words, SH and members of Al-Qaeda had met, but nothing important came of their meeting. Translation: Iraq and Al-Qaeda have no legitimate ties to each other.

President Bush had wondered immediately after the attack [on September 11] whether Saddam Hussein's regime might have had a hand in it.....

Clarke has written that on the evening of September 12, President Bush told him and some of his staff to explore possible Iraqi links to 9/11. "See if Sad-dam did this," Clarke recalls the President telling them. "See if he's linked in any way."(60)....

Responding to a presidential tasking, Clarke's office sent a memo to Rice on September 18, titled "Survey of Intelligence Information on Any Iraq Involvement in the September 11 Attacks." Rice's chief staffer on Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, concurred in its conclusion that only some anecdotal evidence linked Iraq to al Qaeda. The memo found no "compelling case" that Iraq had either planned or perpetrated the attacks...