The United States should face the truth instead of playing around with the reality over the issue of Iraqi war, said China's English-language newspaper China Daily in a signed article Friday.

"The United States would do itself and the world a huge favor by establishing a closer relationship with reality rather than wrestling with its own version of the truth, as the international credibility of American military intelligence is simply of zero value," said the article.

"The truth is the United States used the threat of Iraqi WMD (weapons of mass destruction) and a connection to al-Qaida as justification for launching the war against the regime of Saddam Hussein," it stressed.

According to a report Wednesday by a US commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, no credible evidence has been found that former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein aided al-Qaida attempts to target the United States.

"We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al-Qaida cooperated on attacks against the United States," said the report, issued by the bipartisan commission after two days of public hearings into the Sept. 11 attacks.

Meanwhile, the Bush administration so far still could not collect enough evidence that Saddam Hussein would give whatever WMD he possessed to terrorists, although it treated as a proven fact, said the article.

As the US government did not get support from the report for waging war in Iraq, "it is likely the Bush team will face more backlash both at home and abroad," the article added.