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1994 : (SUDAN : BIN LADEN REQUESTS THAT IRAQ ASSIST AL QAEDA WITH THE PROCUREMENT OF ANTISHIP LIMPET MINES, AND ALSO REQUESTED THE ESTABLISHMENT OF AL QAEDA TRAINING CAMPS WITHIN IRAQ - See FARUQ HIJAZI) THE RELATIONSHIP CONTINUED with high-level meetings throughout 1994 and 1995. The 9/11 Commission staff report that made headlines last year [2004] by declaring that such meetings between Iraq and al Qaeda "do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship" also reported that the Sudanese government arranged for "contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda." The staff report continued: "A senior Iraqi intelligence officer reportedly made three visits to Sudan, finally meeting bin Laden in 1994. Bin Laden is said to have requested space to establish training camps, as well as assistance in procuring weapons, but Iraq apparently never responded."
That senior Iraqi intelligence officer was Faruq Hijazi, former deputy director of Iraqi Intelligence and longtime regime liaison to al Qaeda. According to several Bush administration officials with access to his debriefings, as well as a top secret Pentagon summary of intelligence on Iraq and al Qaeda known as the Feith Memo, Hijazi described a face-to-face meeting with bin Laden that took place in 1994. The language in the Feith Memo corresponds closely to that in the 9/11 Commission staff report. "During a May 2003 custodial interview with Faruq Hijazi, he said in a 1994 meeting with bin Laden in the Sudan, bin Laden requested that Iraq assist al Qaeda with the procurement of an unspecified number of Chinese-manufactured antiship limpet mines. Bin Laden thought that Iraq should be able to procure the mines through third-country intermediaries for ultimate delivery to al Qaeda. Hijazi said he was under orders from Saddam only to listen to bin Laden's requests and then report back to him. Bin Laden also requested the establishment of al Qaeda training camps inside Iraq."
------------ "The Mother of All Connections (New evidence of collaboration between Saddam's Iraq and al Qaeda)," by Stephen F. Hayes & Thomas Joscelyn, The Weekly Standard, July 18, 2005