WASHINGTON, June 18 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair defied an independent US commission’s finding of no "collaborative relationship" between ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda.

The report by the commission on Wednesday, June 17, dealt a devastating blow to the credibility to one of President Bush's major justifications for invading the oil-rich country by finding there was no credible evidence linking Saddam's regime to Osama bin Laden's network.

In a carefully co-ordinated riposte to the commission, defiant Bush insisted there was a dangerous relationship between the two sides.

"The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al-Qaeda is because there was a relationship between Iraq and Al-Qaeda," Bush was quoted by Reuters as saying Thursday, June 17.

But he denied accusations by critics that his administration encouraged people to believe Saddam had a role in the September 11 attacks.

"This administration never said that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated between Saddam and Al-Qaeda."

"We did say there were numerous contacts between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda."

American Vice-President Dick Cheney, who was the administration's most forceful advocate of the Qaeda-Saddam links, was more pointed, repeating in detail his case for those ties.

Commenting on the independent commission's findings, Bush said, "They did not address the broader question of a relationship between Iraq and Al-Qaeda in other areas, in other ways." He claimed "the evidence is overwhelming."

Bush described the ties and cited numerous links back to the 1990's, including contacts between Osama bin Laden and Iraqi intelligence officials.

Powell, Cheney Defiant, Too

Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, also refused to back down. He told Al-Jazeera television there was a connection between Iraq and Al-Qaeda.

"We have seen these connections ... and we stick to that," he said.

Intelligence reports of a link between Saddam and the ghostly group blamed by Washington to be behind the 2001 attacks formed a cornerstone of Bush's rationale for the invasion of Iraq .

The commission report was issued as the Bush administration was renewing assertions of links between Saddam and Al-Qaeda.

"He (Saddam) had long established ties with Al-Qaeda," Cheney said in a speech Monday, June 14.

On Thursday, Cheney insisted again the evidence supporting Saddam-Al-Qaeda relationship was "overwhelming", launching a bitter attack on media reports suggesting that the 9/11 commission has reached a contradictory conclusion and describing them as "irresponsible," according to the CNN Friday, June 18.

"There clearly was a relationship. It's been testified to. The evidence is overwhelming," Cheney said in an interview with CNBC's "Capitol Report."

"It goes back to the early '90s. It involves a whole series of contacts, high-level contacts with Osama bin Laden and Iraqi intelligence officials."

"The press, with all due respect, (is) often times lazy, often times simply reports what somebody else in the press said without doing their homework."

"Permissive Environment"

In London , Blair insisted that Saddam had created "a permissive environment" for what he termed as "terrorists and Al-Qaeda operatives" in Iraq .

"The Prime Minister has always said Saddam created a permissive environment for terrorism and we know that the people affiliated to Al-Qaeda operated in Iraq ," a spokesman for Blair was quoted by The Independent as saying.

"The Prime Minister always made it clear that Saddam's was a rogue state which threatened the security of the region and the world."

In contrast to the US administration, Blair has carefully avoided claims that Saddam was involved in the 9/11 attacks.

The US bipartisan commission did say there had been contact between Iraqis and Al- Qaeda members, including a Sudan meeting between Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and Iraqi intelligence officers.

But it concluded that Iraq never responded to a Laden request for help and said there was no evidence of a "collaborative relationship."

In the months before the invasion, Bush and top aides including Cheney warned that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction and could supply them to Al-Qaeda. No such weapons have ever been found in Iraq .

Kerry Grills Bush

Democrats and other critics said the report entitled "Overview of the Enemy" showed the administration had lost all credibility on Iraq .