We're being played. The Al Qaeda red herring is being used again.
Post-invasion, the Bush and Blair administrations were in a state of panic. They had promised the world substantial WMD-caches in Iraq, and found nothing.
They were desperate enough to go into full-panic mode leading to an attack on ambassador Wilson, when the yellowcake claim was questioned. But this was just the beginning.
The sweeps and raids across Iraq were not carried out to find proof of contacts with Al Qaeda, but to try to smoke out even the scantest of WMD evidence, in order to provide justification.
The Bush and Blair administrations had carried out extensive legal manipulation in order to be able to bypass a second Security Council Resolution sanctioning an attack. Attorney General Goldsmith had been told by Blair that Saddam had WMD, and was in a position to use them against British Forces - this is what it took to get Goldsmith away from his position that a second resolution was required.
The "secret dossier" that Goldsmith worked from was "sexed up" at Blair's behest.
And both the dossier and Goldsmiths about-face were used by Rumsfeld and Cheney to work the MSM in their favor. (The link contains a detailed account of the machinations behind the decision, also making it clear how important it was to find WMD-evidence.)
Just citing the search for Al Qaeda takes attention away from the WMD-trail. The situation was sufficiently critical for the British High Command to fear the war was illegal, and that its officers and soldiers could be accused of war crimes.
And remember David Kay, the UN inspector who was convinced there were WMD in Iraq before the invasion, who resigned shortly after taking the post as head of the Iraq Survey Group (ISG)? Why did he resign?
He went directly to Congress, where he complained about the "politicization of WMD-evidence."
Robin Cook, Labour Party Majority Leader, resigned when Blair made the decision to invade - convinced that the evidence was not sufficient.
Even Duelfer, who took over as head of the ISG after Kay, arrived at a conclusion that could only support the conclusion that the Iraq war was illegal.
All going to prove how much was at stake, leading to the full-court-press sweeps across Iraq, where thousands were rounded up in the hope that something would turn up; and leading to the abuses of Abu Ghraib, among many others. The call came from the top: Find something, anything!
I've personally speculated that David Kay's complaint about "the politicization of WMD-evidence" was a reaction against an attempt to have his ISG certify a WMD-plant. His resignation was inexplicably sudden, he went directly to Congress, he strongly criticized Cheney, as pointed out by the NYTimes here. Any other critic who came out this strongly against Cheney was instantly attacked by Cheney's echo chamber, Kay was allowed to continue his criticism (though there were subsequent attempts to have him discounted as unreliable.)
Again - we are being played. The web of torture was sanctioned from above, in an attempt to find WMD-evidence. The Al Qaeda connection is a distraction in the context of the extensive manipulation that was conducted to support the rationale for the invasion.
Note how WMD is entirely missing in the MSM discussion of the declassified report that has been released, while the torture was all about the WMD.