How could all those people get this mistaken idea of a connection...

Aargh! Where is the media? Lying down again while Bush makes a statement to a bunch of reporters that "nobody's ever suggested, in this administration, that Saddam Hussein ordered the attacks." (video link) That's true, they didn't say precisely that. In fact, that's a perfect example of how they confuse people -- this statement sounds like a denial of the administration having linked Saddam & 9/11, doesn't it? But it's just weasel words -- what they so hypocritically accused Clinton of doing. BushCo has been deliberately misleading people into conflating Saddam Hussein, al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, 9/11, WMD, terrorism, blah-blah-blah for years.

I recently posted something about how more people now think that Saddam was responsible for 9/11 than did a year ago! Gee, I wonder why? 9/11 happens, OBL is accused of being the main bad guy, Bush vows to fight the terrorists and the U.S. invades Iraq which becomes effectively the only front in the GWOT. There are so many examples that put the lie to Bush's claim that no one in his administration caused people to believe that Saddam was linked to 9/11.

Let's start with GWB himself in September 2002 saying: "You can't distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror" and Condoleezza Rice saying: "There clearly are contacts between al Qaeda and Iraq that can be documented."

Josh Marshall at TPM has more as does the CAPAF in its Bush Flip Flopper-in-Chief section