The war was not sold as having anything to do with 9/11. Neither the president nor anyone in his administration said that Iraq was tied to 9/11.
The war was sold based on the WMDs, and even the Duelfer report does not rule out that they were moved. If you remember, Saddam threatened to use WMDs...do you do that if you don't have them? The intelligence, as the UN, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, John Edwards, Carl Levin, etc., etc. agreed, said Iraq had WMDs. Iraq threatened to use WMDs against us.
Iraq was trying to get uranium ore from Africa...Saddam sent "Baghdad Bob" Sayyaf, the information minister there to try to acquire uranium...not Niger, mind you, but Africa, just as the president said.
The war was sold based on Saddam's ties to terrorism...and those are clear. Abdul Rahman Yasin, who made the bomb in the first WTC attack, fled to Baghdad after the attack. Iraq provided money and housing to Yasin. Abu Abbas masterminded the hijacking of the Achille Lauro. U.S. troops captured Abbas in Baghdad April 2003. Abu Nidal received support, including safe haven, training, logistic assistance, and financial aid from Iraq, Libya, and Syria, living in Baghdad. Abu Musab al Zarqawi received medical care in Baghdad after leaving the Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan following the fall of the Taliban. Saddam Hussein paid money to the relatives of suicide bombers.
What is wrong with eliminating such an enemy?
Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding . . . we have a winner!
That's not true. The war was marketed entirely within the context of 9-11. Here's the president in the opening minutes of his Cincinatti speech:
We also must never forget the most vivid events of recent history. On September the 11th, 2001, America felt its vulnerability -- even to threats that gather on the other side of the earth. We resolved then, and we are resolved today, to confront every threat, from any source, that could bring sudden terror and suffering to America.
Cheney called Iraq the "geographic base of the terrorists who had us under assault now for many years, but most especially on 9/11."
Bush, in 2003, said "the battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11th, 2001."