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Earlier this week, the Pentagon announced that an investigation into over 600,000 documents captured at the end of the invasion of Iraq showed no operational links to al-Qaeda — or at least, that’s how the media reported it. After a strange few days in which the Pentagon delayed the report, it finally hit the internet last night — and it’s clear that the analysis done by the media was superficial at best. If no operational “smoking gun” could be found, the report still shows that Saddam Hussein had plenty of ties to all sorts of terrorist groups, including radical Islamist...

This is a FReeper made video based off the Al Qaeda document found and posted here at Free Republic by Jveritas. I plan to post it also at Googlevideo and Liveleak. I will present these links as they become available.

Return to the Article April 17, 2008Saddam and al-QaedaBy Debra Baker Claims that there were no links between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda are wrong. Documents just released by the Pentagon prove it. In March 2008, the Pentagon released a document that details some of the classified documents from Saddam's regime.  This document called the Iraqi Perspectives Project Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi Documents Volume 1 (Redacted) is an overview of "more than 600,000 original captured documents and several thousand hours of audio and video footage archived in a US Department of Defense (DOD) database. As...

The Liberal media has been focused on a so called Gaffe John McCain has made recently in the press. Example is this IPS news story http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41693 POLITICS-US: McCain's Gaffes Reflect Bush's Iran-Qaeda Myth Analysis by Gareth Porter* WASHINGTON, Mar 21 (IPS) - Sen. John McCain's confusion in recent allegations of Iranian training of al Qaeda fighters in Iraq is the result of a drumbeat of official propaganda about close Iran-al Qaeda ties that the George W. Bush administration and neoconservatives have promoted ever since early 2002. Funny how the left-wing press is eager to point out a McCain Gaffe when...

Petraeus: Al Qaida Trying to 'Come Back In' U.S. military officials said there will be no significant reduction in coalition troops in the Baghdad area as part of an effort to stop the Al Qaida offensive in northern Iraq. They said Al Qaida was trying to reenter Baghdad and reverse its losses in 2007. "Al Qaida is trying to come back in," U.S. military commander Gen. David Petraeus said. "We can feel it and see it, and what we're trying to do is rip out any roots before they can get deeply into the ground." Read More Militants Assert...

(March 25, 2008) -- Given the current tragedy in Iraq--hell, given the past five years--you would think the many pundits who agitated for an attack on that country, largely on false pretenses, would have take the opportunity of the arrival of the fifth anniversary of the war (or the 4000 dead milestone) to drop to their knees, at least in print, and beg the American public for forgiveness. With more than 60 percent of their fellow Americans now calling the war a "mistake" and agitating for troop withdrawals--and the president's approval rating still heading south, thanks to their war--it would...

The Iraqi tyrant didn’t “just” aid anti-American terrorist groups; he explicitly ordered them to attack. By Mark Eichenlaub Links. Ties. Operational links. Sponsorship. These terms have vastly different meanings to different members of the media when they discuss relations between Saddam Hussein’s regime and the al-Qaeda network. This became clear yet again last week when news outlets reported on the Department of Defense-sponsored Iraqi Perspectives Project (all five volumes of which are now available here). The vast majority of news reports focused on a single sentence that was incorrectly taken to mean that no ties, links, relations or connections of...

On February 17 2008, Al-Ekhlaas which is the largest terrorist forum on the internet published an Al Qaeda document that talks about the life of Abou Musaab Al Zarqawi and indicates that Zarqawi came to Iraq before the war to prepare the terrorist insurgency against the US troops. According to the document Zarqawi arrived to the Sunni areas in central Iraq. This document was written by one of Al Qaeda top leaders called “Saif Al Adel”. There were many accounts about Zarqawi presence in Iraq before the war in particular in Northern Iraq with “Ansar Al Islam” an active Al...

This report will not be made available online. If you would like to obtain a copy you can request one at the URL below... When the 9-11 Commission Report came out, the media trumpeted that Saddam and Al Qaeda had no connection. But that was not actually true. If you actually READ the report, it says something very different. Then when the Iraq Survey Report came out, the media trumpeted that it said Saddam had no WMD. But if you actually READ the report, it says something rather different. When the National Intelligence Estimate came out saying Iran had shut...

A new study commissioned by the Pentagon has reviewed over 600,000 documents captured in the invasion of Iraq, and the analysis shows no evidence of operational ties between Saddam Hussein’s regime and al-Qaeda. It did find operational ties and more between Saddam and other terrorist groups, however, which will likely be lost in an avalanche of I-told-you-sos: An exhaustive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 2003 U.S. invasion has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein’s regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida terrorist network.The Pentagon-sponsored study, scheduled for release later this...

WASHINGTON — An exhaustive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 2003 U.S. invasion has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden's al Qaida terrorist network. The Pentagon-sponsored study, scheduled for release later this week, did confirm that Saddam's regime provided some support to other terrorist groups, particularly in the Middle East , U.S. officials told McClatchy . However, his security services were directed primarily against Iraqi exiles, Shiite Muslims, Kurds and others he considered enemies of his regime. The new study of the Iraqi regime's archives...

Does anyone have any new insight as to the status of the projects? Once they disappeared I never head about them again.I found them fascinating.

abc report [url]http://www.mediaresearch.org/rm/cyber/2004/binladen061704/segment1.ram[/url] 1/14/1991 Just before the outbreak of war [in 1991] Iraq sent hit squads around the world to attack diplomats and government officials of Coalition nations. Western intelligence agencies and their collaborators picked this up, and as ambassador I’d seen reports about this in Bangkok. …I went to my office, where I was handed urgent papers from a collectivity of intelligence organizations. They revealed that an Iraqi terrorist group had assembled in Bangkok with rocket-propelled grenade launchers and an array of other weapons, with which they planned to attack the U.S., Israeli, and Australian embassies. …Later there were...

We live in an age of documents. There are no more secrets, only deferred disclosures. Saddam Hussein's secret documents are measured by the shelf-mile and stored inside a secure but dusty facility near U.S. Central Command Headquarters in Doha, Qatar, and in several subsidiary sites. Armed guards protect the unread dossiers. Three shifts of two hundred translators each work around the clock. Perhaps 5% of these captured documents have been studied so far, but their contents are about to shatter much of the conventional wisdom concerning Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. The absolutists on either side of the WMD debate...

DALLAS Prosecutors have produced scores of documents, audio and video tapes, and intercepted phone calls in their attempt to prove that a Muslim charity based in a suburban Dallas office park was actually a fund-raising arm of Middle Eastern terrorists.Much of the evidence has surfaced before in books, newspaper articles and previous trials. But those who track terror-financing say the document haul from the trial of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development has also produced new information.They say the documents shed light on a web of related organizations of militant Palestinian supporters in the United States, some of...

Großangriffchen auf den Cyber-Dschihad Von Yassin Musharbash Am 19. Juli rief "jveritas" im Internet dazu auf, von ihm identifizierte Pro-Terror-Websites auszuschalten. Seine Idee war simpel: Die Hostingfirmen mit massenhaften Beschwerde-Mails dazuzubringen, die Seiten zu sperren. Und sie funktionierte auch - ein bisschen. Seit einem Monat herrscht im dschihadistischen Internet ein kleines Erdbeben. Ein knappes Dutzend prominenter Websites (so weit ich zählen kann) ist ihm bereits zum Opfer gefallen. Das Qaida-nahe Diskussionsforum "Das Paradies": bis auf weiteres geschlossen. Die Bekennerschreibenabwurfseite "Welt-Nachrichten-Netzwerk": eine Cyber-Ruine. Das Terroristen-Blog der englischsprachigen "Globalen Islamischen Medienfront": nicht mehr existent. Abgeschaltetes Blog von Terrorsympathisanten: Unter neuer Adresse schon...

Excerpt - ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: Newly declassified intelligence documents reveal the depth of U.S. officials' concern that Pakistan was providing funds, arms — and even combat troops — to the Taliban regime in Afghanistan for years before the Sept. 11 attacks. They also show rising frustration at what U.S. officials called Pakistan's "resistance and/or duplicity" toward Washington's repeated requests for help in getting the Taliban to hand over Osama bin Laden. A top official at one point said hauling Pakistan before the U.N. Security Council should be considered. The documents, released under a Freedom of Information Act request by George Washington...

These captures and kills demonstrate the ideological divide between “secular” Baathists and Islamic extremists was not so distantMany analysts of the insurgency in Iraq are currently debating its makeup and strength, among other things. Regardless of what percentage is currently claiming allegiance to what ideology or group, the past few years of reporting have slowly revealed that at least one deadly aspect of the insurgency in Iraq has been the cooperation of some members of Saddam Hussein's regime (though not all) and Islamic militants, particularly al Qaeda in Iraq. Below is a list, compiled from a number of media reports...

by Joseph Shahda Saddam In April of 2007 the media wing for al Qaeda in Iraq and the Islamic State in Iraq, Al Furqan, released a video documentary about their Kurdistan Units in Northern Iraq. The video training and also conducting an attack on a Kurdish militia vehicle. The video documentary (click images to view) is titled "Al Awda Ila Al Jibal" or "The Return To The Mountains." According to the jihadist websites (World News Network) and forums who posted copies of the video the footage was shot somewhere between 2002 and early 2003, when al Qaeda was moving fighters...

An interview published in Saturday's Washington Post, with a member of the Iraq insurgency, reveals another example of the deadly postwar cooperation between members of Saddam Hussein's former ruling party and al Qaeda in Iraq. In the piece, written by Joshua Hartlow, the insurgent identifies himself as "Abu Sarhan" and revealed that he "had been an officer in the Fedayeen (pictured right via Answers.com), the black-clad paramilitary force of the ousted government of Saddam Hussein." "Sarhan" told his interviewers that he had risen to the level of "'general coordinator' between al-Qaeda in Iraq and the Omar Brigade, an insurgent group...

In a recent Washington Post Op-Ed former DIA analyst Christina Shelton discussed her intelligence work analyzing links between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's Iraq and countered some of the conventional wisdom on the subject while taking issue with the way her background and work were depicted in former CIA director George Tenet's recent book "At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA."Responding to Tenet's charge that she claimed the debate over Iraq - al Qaeda links was "open-and-shut" and in no need of further analysis Shelton wrote: I said the covert nature of the relationship between Iraq...

WASHINGTON – It has been denied, downplayed, overlooked, forgotten, disregarded and omitted from the public record. But a thorough review of open-source material demonstrates conclusive and widespread cooperation between former members of Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime and terrorists from the Iraqi al-Qaida network. Dozens of former Saddam Hussein loyalists captured by U.S.-led coalition forces in Iraq were found to be working with al-Qaida or linked to their operations.

Examining Saddam Hussein's last words (دراسة صدام حسين الكلمات الاخيرة In the months and weeks before his death Saddam Hussein (Uruknet photo on left) produced a number of communications to the world beyond his cell through speeches, letters and interviews. Some of these communications have been made public and reveal additional insights into the former Iraqi leader's personal beliefs and motives, particularly Hussein's views on jihad and the use of terrorism. In his July 7, 2006 letter to the American people, Hussein (via Uruknet) referred to the insurgency in Iraq as "heroic Mujahideen, in glorious, virtuous, militant, jihadist Iraq. So...

Abu Hafs Al-Tikriti threatens France on behalf of Abu Hafs Al-Masri Brigades (النسخه العربية) Within days of the French election results being announced a self-described al Qaeda cell in Europe, Abu Hafs Al-Masri Brigades, warned France of a “bloody jihad attack” in response to their electoral decision. The threat, posted on Islamist websites and translated by MEMRI, was signed by "Abu Hafs Al-Tikriti, The Abu Hafs Al-Masri Brigades, European Division."The Abu Hafs Al-Masri Brigades, who al Qaeda #2 Ayman al-Zawahiri has claimed responsibility for, has a history of threats and claimed attacks in multiple European countries, including claiming responsibility for...

This “supposedly” Saddam Intelligence Service document was published today on an Iraqi news site called Buratha news http://www.burathanews.com/news_article_20033.html and it talks about a scheduled meeting between Saddam Intelligence Service and Al Qaeda number 2 Aymen Al Zawahiri on December 14 2002 and per the request of Saddam Presidential Secretary to discuss an operation called Revenge inside Saudi Arabia that they refer to as “the territories of the two holy shrines”. Also according to the document Aymen AL Zawahiri was supposedly working for Saddam Intelligence Service as a “source” and his number was “1000”. Below is the translation of the document...

GEORGE TENET'S JUST released book, At the Center of the Storm, has created quite a stir. Over the past few days, a myriad of news accounts have referenced various snippets of the former director of Central Intelligence's self-serving collection of remembrances. But here is something you probably have not heard or read about Tenet's book: it confirms that there was a relationship between Saddam's Iraq and al Qaeda. And, according to Tenet, "there was more than enough evidence to give us real concern" about it too. Tenet devotes an entire chapter to the question of Iraq's ties to al Qaeda...

<p>Document http://www.ctc.usma.edu/aq/AFGP-2002-601693-Trans.pdf which is still up on the Harmony Data Base website is a captured Al Qaeda document in Afghanistan and shows without any doubt that Aymen Al Zawahiri who is the Bin Deputy and the so called “Al Qaeda Brain” had visited Iraq as well as he had visited Iran. The document does not indicate which year he did the visit but it is for sure after the year 1995 based on the context of the document. Other reporting from different sources said that there is an indication that Zawahiri visited Iraq in 1998, and this document confirms that he indeed visited Iraq. The document refers to him as Aymen but it is very clear he is Aymen Al Zawahiri because document mentioned that Aymen was the leader of Jihadists in Peshwar Pakistan and indeed Aymen Al Zahiri left Egypt in 1985 after his release from prison and went to Peshawar Pakistan to organize and lead some islamic terrorists there.</p>

One thing that became very clear from many captured Iraqi documents is that most intelligence agencies, politicians, and analysts have greatly underestimated Saddam strong relations to terrorism. In fact, there is no shadow of doubt based on these documents that Saddam regime was a prime “Terrorist Regime” . Saddam Intelligence Service Meeting with Bin Laden Imagine that before the Iraq war, President Bush presented the nation with the irrefutable proof that Saddam regime met with Osama Bin Laden at least once if not more and the impact that this would have on the public support for the war. Only a...

See the video linked

Some of you may have read an article by Stephan Hayes of the Weekly Standard where he wrote about terrorist operations planed by Saddam regime in May 1999 to be conducted in Europe and elsewhere. The code name of the terrorist operations was called “Blessed July”. The operations were planned by Uday Saddam Hussein who was in charge of Saddam Feedeyeens and they called him as well the Supervisor or the Commander as you will read in the translation below. This Iraqi document ISGZ-2004-01894 is yet another powerful proof that Saddam regime was heavily involved with terrorism and President...

“It was clear that there is another branch committee from the Industrial Committee headed by Dr. Mahdi Shakr Ghali that currently evaluates the Researches That Cannot Be Declared, Researches with relation to the previous Prohibited Programs... This is an important subject and it is dangerous in case this information is leaked one way or another.”. That was a quote General Housam Ahmad Amin, one of Saddam regime top officials on September/16/1998 talking about secret programs related to WMD according to Iraqi document CMPC-2003-002284. Below is part I of my findings and analysis based on the captured Iraqi documents that...

For a regime long said to be sharply opposed to radical Islamic groups the secular Baath Party that formerly ruled Iraq has seen a conspicuously large number of its members caught in close collaboration with al Qaeda and other Islamic groups in post-invasion Iraq. A recent arrest in Mosul identified a former Saddam Fedayeen leader as an insurgent leader responsible for al Qaeda/foreign fighter camps in Syria. On March 23, the Tactical Report, an online Middle East intelligence service, reported that a former Saddam Hussein officer was appointed as an al Qaeda leader to set up attacks on Iraqi oil...

A few months ago, a long-awaited investigation into former Undersecretary of Defense, Doug Feith and his Office of Special Plans was finally concluded. (Dept of Defense Inspector General Report) The Department of Defense had been asked by Democrats in Congress to see if Feith and/or his office had done anything illegal in their investigation and reports regarding the depth of ties between Al Queda and Saddam Hussein’s regime. The Department of Defense’s interim Inspector General said essentially that Feith and his office had acted inappropriately by giving the impression that they were an intelligence agency, but that they had not...

The Kurdish Halabja Centre CHAK has submitted new and possibly incriminating evidence in the appeal case against Dutch businessman Frans van Anraat. The documents were reportedly supplied by the Iraqi tribunal that sentenced former dictator Saddam Hussein to death. In December last year, Frans van Anraat was sentenced to 15 years in jail. The court in The Hague found him guilty of supplying materials for chemical weapons to the Saddam Hussein regime in the 1980s. He was acquitted of complicity in genocide because he reportedly did not know that Saddam Hussein intended to use poison gas on the Iraqi population....

This latest MSM piece is just one more in a long line of half truths and misinformation on the connections between Saddam and al-Qaeda. Captured Iraqi documents and intelligence interrogations of Saddam Hussein and two former aides "all confirmed" that Hussein's regime was not directly cooperating with al-Qaeda before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, according to a declassified Defense Department report released yesterday. The declassified version of the report, by acting Inspector General Thomas F. Gimble, also contains new details about the intelligence community's prewar consensus that the Iraqi government and al-Qaeda figures had only limited contacts, and about its...

Captured Iraqi documents and intelligence interrogations of Saddam Hussein and two former aides "all confirmed" that Hussein's regime was not directly cooperating with al-Qaeda before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, according to a declassified Defense Department report released yesterday. The declassified version of the report, by acting Inspector General Thomas F. Gimble, also contains new details about the intelligence community's prewar consensus that the Iraqi government and al-Qaeda figures had only limited contacts, and about its judgments that reports of deeper links were based on dubious or unconfirmed information. The report had been released in summary form in February. The...

A former Defense and Finance Minister of post-invasion Iraq, Ali A. Allawi has completed and just released a book titled "The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace" that talks about the inner workings of many things that took place in post-invasion Iraqi government. Amir Taheri's review of the book for Asharq al Alawsat reveals that Allawi's points to some of the roots of today's violence in Iraq going back over a decade to when Saddam Hussein used violent groups for his own domestic purposes. One of the most interesting revelations in this book is Allawi's account of...

Iraq?s former embassy in Greece added to list of Hussein's international terror outpostsA recent story in the Greek news outlet Ekathimerini, pointed out to Regimeofterror.com by Dr. Laurie Mylroie, reported on previously undisclosed evidence implicating Saddam Hussein?s regime in international terrorism aspirations. The report reveals an incident in which a number of items were secretly removed from Iraq's embassy in Greece during the run up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The items removed fit a pattern of behavior but also raise a number of questions. Ekathimerini reported that it had been made aware of "a joint operation by...

KSM's Confession Last week Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) admitted to having been responsible for planning no fewer than 28 acts of terrorism, including the horrific September 11 attacks, from "A to Z." The sensational confession, made during a military hearing at Guantanamo Bay, raises a number of serious questions -- most pointedly about the decision of the 9/11 Commission to rely on the CIA for information about this terrorist leader, who was captured in 2003. Although the 9/11 Commission identified KSM as a key witness in the World Trade Center and Pentagon, it never was allowed to question him or...

War On Terror: Al-Qaida mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has confessed to being the mastermind for a lot of terrorist crimes. Old news? Hardly. His confession appears to link al-Qaida to Saddam Hussein's Iraq. War critics argue that Saddam Hussein had little to do with terrorism, and nothing to do with al-Qaida. Since there was no Iraq-al-Qaida link, they say, the U.S. should never have invaded to get rid of Hussein, no matter how evil he was. But something interesting has come out of the interrogations of the lead al-Qaida suspects at Guantanamo. In particular, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed confirmed what was...

Abusing Intelligence Michael TanjiMon Feb 19, 11:57 AM ET SECRET INTELLIGENCE work is one of the most important tools a government can use to reduce--in Rumsfeldian parlance--"unknown unknowns." Intelligence is a national security decision-making tool, not a ball to be taken out and kicked about when cheap political points need to be scored. Yet now that the Department of Defense Inspector General's Office has released its report on the intelligence-related activities of the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans, that is exactly what is going on. Leaks of secret intelligence documents are curious affairs. The general public rarely gets to see...

Via Powerline we get this trip down memory lane. 1999 to be exact. It's a ABC news report which details all the connections between Saddam and Osama, of course this was before Bush came along and "cooked" the books according to the NYT's. First the video: (See it here) Now take a look at the new NYT's editorial: It took far too long, but a report by the Pentagon inspector general has finally confirmed that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s do-it-yourself intelligence office cooked up a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda to help justify an unjustifiable war. The report said...

Thursday February 8, 2007 10:01 PM AP Photo BAG108 By ROBERT BURNS AP Military Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - Some of the Pentagon's prewar intelligence work, including a contention that the CIA underplayed the likelihood of al-Qaida connections to Saddam Hussein, was inappropriate but not illegal, a Defense Department investigation has concluded. In a report to be presented to Congress on Friday, the department's inspector general clears former Pentagon policy chief Douglas J. Feith of allegations by some Democrats of illegal activities - specifically that he misled Congress about the basis of the administration's assertions on the threat posed by Iraq....

A reporter Larisa Alexandrovna claims that the Pentagon Inspector General plans on releasing this report. http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_larisa_a_070207_pentagon_inspector_g.htm "According to sources close to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the classified version of the Pentagon IG's report will be released to committee members Friday. Two to three declassified pages may also be concurrently released to the public." I would post the story but OpEdNews and The Raw Story are not welcome here and probably for good reason.

Saddam regime document CMPC-2004-003406 contains a memo that talks about importing “Chemical Materials for Very Special Usage” from the “Office in Morocco”. The deal according to the memo was based on the “Gentlemen Accord” and the condition was to pay cash and directly but they decided later on to pay it through a Syrian company called Seess and according the “Iraqi-Syrian Commerce Agreement”. This document is of great importance because the “Chemical Materials for Very Special Usage” are very unlikely to fall under the civilian applications and much more likely to fall under the “Chemical Weapon Usage”.The page where...

Document CMPC-2004-003015 (pages 90-91-92) contain a letter dated May 1993 from Hussein Kamel Hassan the former head of the Iraqi Military Industrial Committee to Saddam Hussein regarding lifting the oil export embargo on Iraq. Kamel Hassan mentioned the name of “Samir Vincent” and Iraqi ex-pat living in the US and who according to the letter has good relation with the Iraqi regime for a long time and that Samir Vincent is helping the Iraqis to have the oil export embargo lifted through his contacts with the US State Department and the U.N. Also in the letter was mentioned the name...

Lt. General Michael DeLong discusses intelligence behind U.S. concern over Ansar al-Islam terror/poison camp in Northern IraqA recent conversation Lt. General Michael DeLong revealed new information on prewar intelligence on Iraq that has received little, if any, public attention thus far. General DeLong was the deputy commander of U.S. Central Command during the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and was directly involved with the pre-invasion preparation for Operation Iraqi Freedom. He offered the observation that Bush administration officials appear to have been reluctant thus far in explaining the prewar intelligence and evidence tying members of Saddam Hussein’s regime to the...

Newly elected Pennsylvania Congressman, Democrat Chris Carney, a former Senior Terrorism and Intelligence Advisor at the Pentagon, has recently been quoted in a number of publications discussing his knowledge of and role in prewar Iraq intelligence, particularly on the issue Saddam Hussein’s links to al Qaeda. His views on the subject are a stark contrast to many in his party, particularly Senator Carl Levin, who has long expressed his belief that any link between Saddam Hussein's regime and al Qaeda was a manufacture of the Bush administration. Carney's comments and experience on the issue may even put him in the...

Mike DeLong Inside CentCom If you want the inside story of what was being said and done at the top levels of U.S. government from the September 11th attacks until the fall of Saddam Hussein, you can ask one of two men -- Army General Tommy Franks, or Marine Corps General Mike DeLong, who was Franks' deputy. Listen to Mike DeLong at link....

Critics of President Bush's Iraq policy employ a flimsy argument that nonetheless enjoys growing appeal among a largely hostile press corps. Since Saddam Hussein did not order the Sept. 11 attacks -- the fuzzy logic goes -- he has no ties to terrorists, especially al Qaeda. Therefore, the Iraq war was bogus, and Bush should be defeated. "The evidence now shows clearly that Saddam did not want to work with Osama bin Laden at all," Al Gore declared Aug. 7. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.V., told the Los Angeles Times that Iraq's alleged al Qaeda links were "tenuous at best and...