“learned that Iraq has trained al-Qaida members in bomb-making and poisons and gas.†- President Bush October of 2002 Cincinnati
“a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida that stretched back through most of the decade of the ’90s.†Di[b][/b]ck Cheney September 2003 on Meet the Press
Why cite these examples when Bush later publicly stated that there was no link between Saddam Hussein and September 11th?
Because on September 21th 2001 the President Bush and his top staff were given a briefing. The Whitehouse refused to make public this briefing or even allow access to it to the Senate Intelligence Committee. However the details of that briefing has recently come to light and been confirmed by officials. The briefing included the following tidbits (Gonna copy+paste some of these):
a)That there absolutely no credible evidence linking Saddam to the events of 9/11.
b)That there was no evidence of any link between Al-qaida and Saddam Hussein.
c) Saddam is said to have viewed al-Qaida as a threat, rather than a potential ally. The few believable reports of contact between Iraq and al-Qaida “involved attempts by Saddam Hussein to monitor the terrorist groupâ€. Saddam considered al-Qaida “as well as other theocratic radical Islamist organizations as a potential threat to his secular regime,â€.
So on Sept 21, 2001 Bush and his top administration officials were made aware during the Presidential Daily Briefing that Saddam was in no way linked with 9/11 and that he actually viewed Al-qaeda as a potential threat.
If you look at the record it is obvious as Gbaji has stated that not once did a Bush adminstration official clearly and decisively say "Saddam was involved in the attacks". That has never happened. What did happen is that it became the Bush administration mantra to repeatedly allude to intelligence that linked Al-Qaeda and Iraq. Furthermore it was their policy to withhold any and all information that showed taht said links between iraq and al-qaeda were false and to also withhold evidence that showed that Saddam and Al-qaeda were actually at odds with one another.
That is how the nation was mislead. The senate in no way had the same access to intelligence that President Bush had. In fact they were dependant upon Bush on giving them information. If Bush withheld information and expounded information that he knew was shoddy in order to support his war I do not see how you could view it in any other way than misleading.