Tornado Alley (PROG)

[F6]

Cheney on defensive over 9/11 comments

STAFF AND NEWS SERVICES
Published on: 10/06/04

One of the key disputes in the debate between Democratic Sen. John Edwards and Vice President Dick Cheney focused on whether Cheney has incorrectly suggested that there was a link between Saddam Hussein and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States.

"I have not suggested there's a connection between Iraq and 9/11," Cheney said during the debate. "But there's clearly an established Iraqi track record with terror."

That doesn't exactly mesh with what Cheney has said, or at least implied, on the campaign trail. There he often cites Saddam's "long-established" ties to al-Qaida — the organization responsible for the attacks — while mentioning the former dictator's production and use of chemical weapons, support for the families of suicide bombers and defiance of various U.N. resolutions.

Cheney's subtle assertion of a Sept. 11 link comes despite the findings of a bipartisan commission that investigated the attacks, which said it found no evidence of a "collaborative relationship" between Saddam and the terrorist organization led by Osama bin Laden.

The commission's staff has said it found "no credible evidence" that Iraq had cooperated with al-Qaida in targeting the United States.

On another Iraq-related point, Edwards attacked Cheney for the administration's decision to give billions of dollars in new contracts to the vice president's former company, Halliburton.

But congressional auditors recently reviewed those contracts and concluded U.S. officials met legal guidelines in awarding the business without competition — in part because Halliburton was the only company capable of doing some of the work.

© 2004 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/election/0904nation/06debcheney.html