Washington, D.C.

Bush: Saddam Hussein not behind Sept. 11 attacks

President Bush said Wednesday there was no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 — disputing an impression that critics say the administration tried to foster to justify the war against Iraq.

“There’s no question that Saddam Hussein had al-Qaida ties,” the president said. But he also said, “We’ve had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with September the 11th.”

The president’s comment was the administration’s firmest assertion that there is no proven link between Saddam and Sept. 11.

A recent poll indicated that nearly 70 percent of Americans believed the Iraqi leader probably was personally involved.

San Francisco

Appeals court asked to reinstate Oct. 7 election

California’s top elections official and pro-recall forces urged a federal appeals court Wednesday to reverse course and allow the election to go forward as originally planned Oct. 7.

Secretary of State Kevin Shelley told the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that it should stick to the Oct. 7 date because thousands of absentee voters had already been mailing in their ballots, reflecting their decisions whether to remove Gov. Gray Davis.

The state already has sent out 2 million absentee ballots to voters, he said, and California’s 58 counties have mailed out sample ballots and 13 million ballot pamphlets.

Jerusalem

Settlers convicted in plot to blow up Arab girls’ school

A Jerusalem court on Wednesday convicted three Israeli settlers for attempting to blow up an Arab girls’ school in Jerusalem last year to avenge Palestinian attacks against Jews.

Shlomo Dvir, Yarden Morag and Ofer Gamliel, all from the West Bank settlement of Bat Ayin, were convicted of attempted murder and illegal weapons possession in connection with the failed attack in the Jerusalem Arab neighborhood of A-Tur in April 2002.

The court found that Dvir and Morag parked an explosives-laden trailer outside the main entrance to the school before dawn and set a timer for 7:25 a.m., just as students would be arriving.

Houston

New NASA safety rule could delay launch until ’05

If NASA isn’t ready to launch a space shuttle by fall 2004, the return to flight may have to wait until March 2005, thanks to new rules that cut the launch opportunities in half.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has declared that all launches for the foreseeable future will happen in daylight, so that cameras can film the shuttle as it streaks into orbit and record any debris that might damage the orbiter. Chief of the shuttle ascent and descent dynamics branch, Greg Oliver, said these daylight launch restrictions would reduce the number of launch opportunities by more than half. And that does not take into account the usual delays caused by weather, meteor showers and other factors.