Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, September 18, 2003
No evidence of Saddam's link with Sept. 11 attacks: Bush
US President George W. Bush admitted Wednesday that there is no evidence of ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's involvement in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.
US President George W. Bush admitted Wednesday that there is no evidence of ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's involvement in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.
"We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with September the 11th," Bush told reporters in the White House.
But Bush insisted that Saddam had connections with al-Qaida, the network believed to be behind the Sept. 11 attacks. "There's no question that Saddam Hussein had al-Qaida ties," the US president said.
Speaking on different occasions on Tuesday, both US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and presidential national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said that Saddam was not behind the Sept.11 attacks.
They were responding to a recent poll by the Washington Post which indicated that 69 percent of Americans believed Saddam was linked to the Sept. 11 attacks although there was no relevant evidence.