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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...

What was the relationship between Saddam Hussein's inner circle and Islamic terrorists? A newly released document captured in Iraq, but never before seen by the public, offers glimmers of new insight at the Pentagon's Foreign Military Studies Office Web site. The FMSO is a research and analysis center under the U.S. Army's Training and Doctrine Command. This particular document mentions two men with similar names, each with ties to Pakistani religious schools known as madrassas, Jihad training camps, the Taliban and Al Qaeda. This original translation by my translator-colleague, who goes by the nom de guerre of "Sammi," comes from...

Baghdad, 23 May (AKI) - The number two of the al-Qaeda network, Ayman al-Zawahiri, visited Iraq under a false name in September 1999 to take part in the ninth Popular Islamic Congress, former Iraqi premier Iyad Allawi has revealed to pan-Arab daily al-Hayat. In an interview, Allawi made public information discovered by the Iraqi secret service in the archives of the Saddam Hussein regime, which sheds light on the relationship between Saddam Hussein and the Islamic terrorist network. He also said that both al-Zawahiri and Jordanian militant al-Zarqawi probably entered Iraq in the same period. "Al-Zawahiri was summoned by Izza...

SADDAM HUSSEIN'S REGIME PROVIDED FINANCIAL support to Abu Sayyaf, the al Qaeda-linked jihadist group founded by Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law in the Philippines in the late 1990s, according to documents captured in postwar Iraq. An eight-page fax dated June 6, 2001, and sent from the Iraqi ambassador in Manila to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Baghdad, provides an update on Abu Sayyaf kidnappings and indicates that the Iraqi regime was providing the group with money to purchase weapons. The Iraqi regime suspended its support--temporarily, it seems--after high-profile kidnappings, including of Americans, focused international attention on the terrorist group. The...

March 17, 2006: Documents confirm Saddam Hussein government knew Zarqawi headed Al Qaeda cell in Iraq in August 2002 Documents released Thursday by the US government show that less than a year after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, Saddam Hussein’s government had identified at least one active Al Qaeda cell in his country. Among the Iraqi documents collected by U.S. intelligence during the Iraq war amd released Thursday is a document, released only in Arabic, which the US government describes as follows: 2002 Iraqi Intelligence Correspondence concerning the presence of al-Qaida Members in Iraq. Correspondence between...