Here is what is in the 9/11 report about Iraq that I could find. Nothing damning as far as I can tell. Any president would put Iraq on the list as possible suspects at the time I would think. However, It's evident to me that the people that had his ear thought that Iraq was guilty somehow but this report doesn't go into that in any detail.
10.3 PHASE TWOAND THE QUESTION OF IRAQ
President Bush had wondered immediately after the attack whether Saddam
Husseins regime might have had a hand in it. Iraq had been an enemy of the
United States for 11 years, and was the only place in the world where the
United States was engaged in ongoing combat operations. As a former pilot,
the President was struck by the apparent sophistication of the operation and
some of the piloting, especially Hanjours high-speed dive into the Pentagon.
He told us he recalled Iraqi support for Palestinian suicide terrorists as well.
Speculating about other possible states that could be involved, the President
told us he also thought about Iran.
Clarke has written that on the evening of September 12,President Bush told
him and some of his staff to explore possible Iraqi links to 9/11. See if Saddam
did this, Clarke recalls the President telling them.See if hes linked in any
way.60 While he believed the details of Clarkes account to be incorrect, President
Bush acknowledged that he might well have spoken to Clarke at some
point, asking him about Iraq.
Responding to a presidential tasking, Clarkes office sent a memo to Rice
on September 18, titled Survey of Intelligence Information on Any Iraq
Involvement in the September 11 Attacks. Rices chief staffer on Afghanistan,
Zalmay Khalilzad, concurred in its conclusion that only some anecdotal evidence
linked Iraq to al Qaeda.The memo found no compelling case that Iraq
had either planned or perpetrated the attacks. It passed along a few foreign
intelligence reports, including the Czech report alleging an April 2001 Prague
meeting between Atta and an Iraqi intelligence officer (discussed in chapter 7)
and a Polish report that personnel at the headquarters of Iraqi intelligence in
Baghdad were told before September 11 to go on the streets to gauge crowd
reaction to an unspecified event. Arguing that the case for links between Iraq
and al Qaeda was weak, the memo pointed out that Bin Ladin resented the
secularism of Saddam Husseins regime. Finally, the memo said, there was no
confirmed reporting on Saddam cooperating with Bin Ladin on unconventional
weapons.
On the afternoon of 9/11, according to contemporaneous notes, Secretary
Rumsfeld instructed General Myers to obtain quickly as much information as
possible.The notes indicate that he also told Myers that he was not simply interested
in striking empty training sites.He thought the U.S. response should consider
a wide range of options and possibilities. The secretary said his instinct
was to hit Saddam Hussein at the same timenot only Bin Ladin. Secretary
Rumsfeld later explained that at the time, he had been considering either one
of them, or perhaps someone else, as the responsible party.
According to Rice, the issue of what, if anything, to do about Iraq was really
engaged at Camp David.Briefing papers on Iraq, along with many others,were
in briefing materials for the participants. Rice told us the administration was
concerned that Iraq would take advantage of the 9/11 attacks. She recalled that
in the first Camp David session chaired by the President, Rumsfeld asked what
the administration should do about Iraq.Deputy SecretaryWolfowitz made the
case for striking Iraq during this round of the war on terrorism.
A Defense Department paper for the Camp David briefing book on the
strategic concept for the war on terrorism specified three priority targets for
initial action: al Qaeda, theTaliban, and Iraq. It argued that of the three, al Qaeda
and Iraq posed a strategic threat to the United States. Iraqs long-standing
involvement in terrorism was cited, along with its interest in weapons of mass
destruction.
Secretary Powell recalled that Wolfowitznot Rumsfeldargued that Iraq
was ultimately the source of the terrorist problem and should therefore be
attacked.66 Powell said that Wolfowitz was not able to justify his belief that Iraq
was behind 9/11. Paul was always of the view that Iraq was a problem that
had to be dealt with, Powell told us.And he saw this as one way of using this
event as a way to deal with the Iraq problem. Powell said that President Bush
did not give Wolfowitzs argument much weight.67 Though continuing to
worry about Iraq in the following week, Powell said, President Bush saw
Afghanistan as the priority.
President Bush told Bob Woodward that the decision not to invade Iraq was
made at the morning session on September 15. Iraq was not even on the table
during the September 15 afternoon session, which dealt solely with
Afghanistan. Rice said that when President Bush called her on Sunday, September
16, he said the focus would be on Afghanistan, although he still wanted
plans for Iraq should the country take some action or the administration eventually
determine that it had been involved in the 9/11 attacks.
At the September 17 NSC meeting, there was some further discussion of
phase two of the war on terrorism. President Bush ordered the Defense
Department to be ready to deal with Iraq if Baghdad acted against U.S. interests,
with plans to include possibly occupying Iraqi oil fields.
Within the Pentagon, Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz continued to press the
case for dealing with Iraq. Writing to Rumsfeld on September 17 in a memo
headlined Preventing More Events,he argued that if there was even a 10 percent
chance that Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 attack, maximum pri-
ority should be placed on eliminating that threat.Wolfowitz contended that
the odds were far more than 1 in 10, citing Saddams praise for the attack, his
long record of involvement in terrorism, and theories that Ramzi Yousef was
an Iraqi agent and Iraq was behind the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center.
The next day, Wolfowitz renewed the argument, writing to Rumsfeld
about the interest of Yousef s co-conspirator in the 1995 Manila air plot in
crashing an explosives-laden plane into CIA headquarters, and about information
from a foreign government regarding Iraqis involvement in the attempted
hijacking of a Gulf Air flight. Given this background, he wondered why so little
thought had been devoted to the danger of suicide pilots, seeing a failure
of imagination and a mind-set that dismissed possibilities.
On September 19, Rumsfeld offered several thoughts for his commanders
as they worked on their contingency plans.Though he emphasized the worldwide
nature of the conflict, the references to specific enemies or regions named
only the Taliban, al Qaeda, and Afghanistan. Shelton told us the administration
reviewed all the Pentagons war plans and challenged certain assumptions
underlying them, as any prudent organization or leader should do.
General Tommy Franks, the commanding general of Central Command,
recalled receiving Rumsfelds guidance that each regional commander should
assess what these plans meant for his area of responsibility. He knew he would
soon be striking the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan. But, he told us, he
now wondered how that action was connected to what might need to be done
in Somalia,Yemen, or Iraq.
On September 20, President Bush met with British Prime Minister Tony
Blair, and the two leaders discussed the global conflict ahead.When Blair asked
about Iraq, the President replied that Iraq was not the immediate problem.
Some members of his administration, he commented, had expressed a different
view, but he was the one responsible for making the decisions.
Franks told us that he was pushing independently to do more robust planning
on military responses in Iraq during the summer before 9/11a request
President Bush denied, arguing that the time was not right. (CENTCOM also
began dusting off plans for a full invasion of Iraq during this period, Franks
said.) The CENTCOM commander told us he renewed his appeal for further
military planning to respond to Iraqi moves shortly after 9/11, both because
he personally felt that Iraq and al Qaeda might be engaged in some form of
collusion and because he worried that Saddam might take advantage of the
attacks to move against his internal enemies in the northern or southern parts
of Iraq, where the United States was flying regular missions to enforce Iraqi
no-fly zones. Franks said that President Bush again turned down the request.
