Well, Bush himself is saying he never said Iraq had anything to do with 9/11. Come to think of it, I don't recall anyone outside of Cheney or maybe Rumsfeld once connecting the two. The supposed governmental connection of Iraq to Al-Queda was really a product of hearing Iraq called one of the Axis of Evil nations and various talking heads say something or another about Operation Iraqi Freedom being part of the general War on Terror. The public is really at fault the most for making such a connection up, since a lot of people can't differentiate different issues that would seem to be so logically connected. Unfortunately, the average American sees the entire Middle East as one big mass of towel-headed people who hate us, instead of different nations and groups that hate us for, say, different reasons (or, in the case of Israel, don't hate us, but Israel is hardly capable of being lumped in with the rest of those nations).