Time to start recalling who's been telling us that these connections were simply ludicrous because Saddam was a secular dictator and OBL a religious fanatic.
Here are a few pre-2000 links, some excerpted in the main article.
2/6/1999 The UK Guardian The Western nightmare: Saddam and Bin Laden versus the world
At the head of the group was a man by the name of Farouk Hijazi, President Saddam Hussein's new ambassador to Turkey and one of Iraq's most senior intelligence officers. He had been sent on one of the most important assignments of his career - to recruit Osama bin Laden.
Thus the world's most notorious pariah state, armed with its half-built hoard of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, tried to embrace the planet's most prolific terrorist. It was the stuff of the West's millennial nightmares, but United States intelligence officials are positive that the meeting took place, although they admit that they have no idea what happened.
1/11/1999 Newsweek
Here's what is known so far: Saddam Hussein, who has a long record of supporting terrorism, is trying to rebuild his intelligence network overseas--assets that would allow him to establish a terrorism network. U.S. sources say he is reaching out to Islamic terrorists, including some who may be linked to Osama bin Laden, the wealthy Saudi exile accused of masterminding the bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa last summer. U.S. intelligence has had reports of contacts between low-level agents. Saddam and bin Laden have interests--and enemies--in common. Both men want U.S. military forces out of Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden has been calling for all-out war on Americans, using as his main pretext Washington's role in bombing and boycotting Iraq. Now bin Laden is engaged in something of a public-relations offensive, having granted recent interviews, one for NEWSWEEK (following story). He says "any American who pays taxes to his government" is a legitimate target.
Saddam's terrorism capability is still small-time, according to senior U.S. officials. "He's nowhere close to the level of the Iranians or Hizbullah," says one. But terrorism may be Iraq's growth industry. An Arab intelligence officer who knows Saddam personally and stays in touch with his clandestine services predicts that "very soon you will be witnessing large-scale terrorist activity run by the Iraqis." The attacks, he says, would be aimed at American and British targets in the Islamic world. Washington is somewhat skeptical, but this source says plans have already been put into action under three "false flags": one Palestinian, one Iranian and one "the al-Qaeda apparatus," the loose collection of terrorists who receive bin Laden's patronage. "All these organizations have representatives in Baghdad," says the Arab intelligence officer.
8/6/1999 National Press Club transcript with terrorism expert Yosef Bodansky
The other state that is rising up -- and I've elaborated a lot in the book about that -- is Iraq. Bin Laden has been dealing with Iraq intelligence since the early 1990s, where they cooperated in Sudan and in Somalia. This has been a love-hate relationship because of the Iraqi secular policies and Saddam Hussein's disdain for Islamism and even persecution of Iraqi Islamists, including veterans of Afghanistan.
1999 Excerpt from terrorism expert Yossef Bodansky’s book, Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America.
Bin Laden moved to solidify the cooperation with Saddam Hussein. In mid-July (1998)*, Ayman al-Zawahiri traveled to Iraq clandestinely. He met senior Iraqi officials, including Taha Yassin Ramadan, to discuss practical modalities for the establishment of bin Laden’s base in Iraq, the expansion of training for his mujahideen, and a joint strategy for an anti-U.S. jihad throughout the Arab world and North Africa. Baghdad could not have been more helpful, conditioning its support on bin Laden’s promise not to incite the Iraqi Muslim Brotherhood into establishing and Islamic state in Iraq; in other words not to conspire against Saddam Hussein’s reign.
2/17/1999 Radio Free Europe
Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein offered bin Laden asylum last month.
Middle East analyst Neil Partrick of the Royal United Services Institute in London told RFE/RL that the Iraqi ambassador to Turkey has met with bin Laden.
Check this out.......
The good stuff will come out in perfect timing.