  It seem that the right wing punditry (as well as the mainstream press) in the states seem to be parroting back the Bush-line that the White House staff never actually said there was a link between Al-Qaeda and Sadam. urlLink Alternet and urlLink Ted Rall have good articles on this The strongest memory I have of the Bush tactic of imply but don't say directly was the urlLink 2003 State of the Union address: "Before September the 11th, many in the world believed that Saddam Hussein could be contained. But chemical agents, lethal viruses and shadowy terrorist networks are not easily contained. Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons and other plans -- this time armed by Saddam Hussein. It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known. We will do everything in our power to make sure that that day never comes. (Applause. )" Of course this does not say that Saddam was involved in Sept. 11th but it is quite clear what Bush wanted people to think and more importantly to feel about Saddam.
In combination with Bush's entire cabinet appearing week in and week out saying equally charged statements, it is not surprising that by the time of the Iraq invasion over two thirds of Americans polled believed that Saddam had been proven to be involved in Sept. 11th.
The reason the 2003 State of the Union sticks in mind is that the next morning I was having a discussion with an American over it and he said that although not a Bush supporter that hw was quite impressed by the level of intelligence information that Bush had given. I replied, that from books, articles etc on the subject that I had read, some of the intelligence sounded out of date and/or misleading and in one or two places just sounded plain wrong. Back in 2003 this was not the most easy stance to take. How times change ... 
