Linking Iraq to 9/11

The allegation was that the attacks were used to sell an unrelated war, with a link to Baghdad asserted or insinuated long after analysts had rejected it.

The claim was contested at the time by intelligence officers and journalists, and settled by the Commission report, the Senate intelligence committee and the Iraq Survey Group.

Accounts are deliberately not collected here. This entry documents a historical case rather than a circulating remedy.

This one is documented. The 9/11 Commission found no collaborative operational relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda on the attacks. A 2006 Senate report found postwar intelligence did not support the claimed relationship, and that specific allegations, including a Prague meeting involving Mohamed Atta, had been discounted before they were repeated publicly. Polling through 2003 showed a majority of Americans believing Iraq was involved. The suspicion that the public was being led was accurate.