They said it was Al-Qaeda, but they killed civilians.
You say, “After the 9/11 attacks, the US claimed that Iraq supported and harbored terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda.” Was this true?
Posted on May 12, 2026 by Dtesca
They said it was Al-Qaeda, but they killed civilians.
US – Iraq War-4
No, this claim has been refuted by extensive investigations and official reports conducted after the war. It is now clearly known that the US administration’s claim before the invasion that “there was an operational link between Iraq and Al-Qaeda” does not reflect the truth. [1, 2]
We can summarize the main findings on this issue as follows:
9/11 Commission Report: The official commission investigating the 9/11 attacks clearly stated that there was no cooperation or “operational link” between the Iraqi government and Al-Qaeda regarding the attacks.
Intelligence Contradictions: Documents deciphered after the war revealed that the CIA and other intelligence agencies had actually found no evidence of a partnership between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda even before the invasion, but the Bush administration presented this “weak or unverified” information to the public as definitive proof. Ideological Conflict: Experts emphasize that Saddam Hussein’s secular Ba’ath regime viewed Osama bin Laden’s fundamentalist Islamist ideology as a threat. Bin Laden is also known to have considered Saddam an “apostate” and opposed him. Misinformation: One of the most important “pieces of evidence” for the US was the testimony of al-Qaeda member Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi during interrogation. However, it was later understood that this person lied under torture and fabricated the claim that Iraq provided al-Qaeda with chemical weapons training. Post-War Documents: Military reviews of over 600,000 Iraqi state documents seized after the invasion (Pentagon report) found no “concrete evidence” that the Saddam regime was in direct coordination with al-Qaeda. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]
Consequently, the claim that Iraq was involved in the 9/11 attacks or had a strategic partnership with al-Qaeda is an unproven justification used to legitimize the war. [1]
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