Many in U.S. link 9/11 to Saddam

WASHINGTON — On the second anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, seven in 10 Americans continue to believe that Iraq's Saddam Hussein had a role in the attacks, even though the Bush administration and congressional investigators say they have no evidence of this.

Sixty-nine percent of Americans said they thought it at least likely that Saddam was involved in the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, according to the latest Washington Post poll. That impression, which exists despite the fact that the hijackers were mostly Saudi nationals acting for al-Qaida, is broadly shared by Democrats, Republicans and independents.

The main reason for the endurance of the apparently groundless belief, experts in public opinion say, is a deep and enduring distrust of Saddam that makes him a likely suspect in anything related to Middle East violence. "It's very easy to picture Saddam as a demon," said John Mueller, a political scientist at Ohio State University and an expert on public opinion and war. "You get a general fuzz going around: People know they don't like al-Qaida, they are horrified by September 11th, they know this guy is a bad guy, and it's not hard to put those things together."

While that belief came without prompting from Washington, Democrats and some independent experts say Bush exploited the apparent misconception by implying a link between Saddam and the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the months before war with Iraq. "The notion was reinforced by these hints, the discussions that they had about possible links with al-Qaida terrorists," said Andrew Kohut, a pollster who leads the nonpartisan Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.

The poll's findings are significant because they help to explain why the public continues to support the war in Iraq despite the setbacks and bloodshed there. Americans have more tolerance for war when it is provoked by an attack, particularly one by an all-purpose villain such as Saddam. "That's why attitudes about the decision to go to war are holding up," Kohut said.

Bush's opponents say he encouraged this misconception by linking al-Qaida to Saddam in almost every speech on Iraq. Indeed, administration officials began to hint about a Sept. 11-Saddam link began soon after the attacks. In late 2001, Vice President Dick Cheney said it was "pretty well confirmed" that attack mastermind Mohamed Atta met with a senior Iraqi intelligence official.