Free Republic

Saddam, the ATM of Al Qaeda By Christopher S. Carson FrontPageMagazine.com | November 15, 2004 The Report of the 9/11 Commission has been digested, and the news media outlets have seized upon it as confirmation of their view that al Qaeda is a kind of purely stateless entity that never had "operational links" with rogue states like Iraq. Somehow, goes the thrust of the Report, Osama bin Laden was for years able to finance, train and supply an international terrorist corporation that had ongoing jihad operations in fifty countries - by himself, on no more than a $30 million personal...

<p>BAGHDAD &#8212; Taha Yassin Ramadan, a former Iraqi vice president known as "Saddam's knuckles" for his ruthlessness against regime enemies, was captured by Kurdish fighters yesterday in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul and turned over to U.S. forces.</p> <p>Ramadan once was considered Iraq's second-most-powerful man, but his influence declined in the later years of Saddam Hussein's regime. He was No. 20 on the U.S. list of most-wanted Iraqi fugitives and the "10 of Diamonds" in the Pentagon's deck of cards depicting former regime figures.</p>