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WASHINGTON (CNN) --Does Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein provide assistance to 
Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda? It's a case the Bush administration has tried 
hard to make.

"These al Qaeda affiliates, based in Baghdad, now coordinate the movement of 
people, money and supplies into and throughout Iraq for his network, and 
they've been operating freely in the capital for more than eight months," 
said U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell in his presentation last month to 
the U.N. Security Council.

During testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee in mid-February, 
CIA Director George Tenet added, "Iraq has, in the past, provided training in 
document forgery and bomb-making to al Qaeda. It has also provided training 
in poisons and gases to two al Qaeda associates."

These assertions, however, might be as good as the case gets for U.S. 
officials linking the terror network to Iraq. While some members of al Qaeda 
could be operating out of Iraq, intelligence and investigative sources said 
there is evidence the group also operates out of Iran and Pakistan. And while 
there is evidence Iraqi officials might have helped al Qaeda years ago, the 
same case could be made for Pakistani, Yemeni and Saudi officials.

The Iraqi president repeatedly has denied any connection between his 
government and bin Laden's terrorist network. "If we had a relationship with 
al Qaeda and if we believed in this relationship, we wouldn't be ashamed to 
admit it," Saddam said in a recent interview on British television. "The 
answer is no. We do not have any relationship with al Qaeda."

Bin Laden recently declared solidarity with the Iraqi people, but he lashed 
out at Saddam's government. In the latest audiotaped message purported to be 
recorded by the al Qaeda leader, bin Laden denounced Saddam's socialist Baath 
party as "infidels."

Bottom line: U.S. officials claim there is evidence of an al Qaeda-Iraq 
connection -- but there is no "smoking gun."

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman said he thinks the TV networks' news 
coverage has helped sell the Saddam-al Qaeda connection. "Suddenly, it was 
Osama, Osama, Osama ... Saddam, Saddam, Saddam ... and the networks -- the 
broadcast media -- simply picked that up [and] transferred our feelings of 
alarm and anger from one villain to another."

In a February CNN-Time poll, 76 percent of those surveyed felt Saddam 
provides assistance to al Qaeda. Another poll released in February asked, 
"Was Saddam Hussein personally involved in the September 11 attacks?" 
Although it is a claim the Bush administration has never made and for which 
there is no evidence, 72 percent said it was either very or somewhat likely.

"I think the administration has used the media very successfully to make the 
case against Saddam as the chief evildoer of the moment, but I still think 
there's an awful lot of uneasiness in America over this war," said Howard 
Kurtz, Washington Post media critic and co-host of CNN's "Reliable Sources."

Some critics blame the cable news networks for helping make Iraq the new 
enemy. "They use essentially the kind of logos, martial music, and so on that 
we saw after Gulf War One had started," Krugman said. "So, from the point of 
view of the American public, Iraq is already the enemy; we're already at war."

Many Americans who watch U.S. news coverage have accepted Saddam as the new 
enemy. Europeans have a different outlook.

"The European media, by contrast, have been very skeptical of the war, very 
aggressive of covering the anti-war movement," explained Kurtz, "and some 
people think they have a strain of anti-Americanism -- or at least 
anti-George Bush."
 

  
 
  
 

  
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