Saddam and Al Qaeda

For those who still insist that we "know" there was no connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda, and they appear to be legion, Stephen Hayes in this week's Weekly Standard should be required reading.

Indeed, more than two years after the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein was
ousted, there is much we do not know about the relationship between Iraq and al
Qaeda. We do know, however, that there was one. We know about this relationship
not from Bush administration assertions but from internal Iraqi Intelligence
Service (IIS) documents recovered in Iraq after the war--documents that have
been authenticated by a U.S. intelligence community long hostile to the very
idea that any such relationship exists.

We know from these IIS documents that beginning in 1992 the former Iraqi
regime regarded bin Laden as an Iraqi Intelligence asset. We know from IIS
documents that the former Iraqi regime provided safe haven and financial support
to an Iraqi who has admitted to mixing the chemicals for the 1993 attack on the
World Trade Center. We know from IIS documents that Saddam Hussein agreed to
Osama bin Laden's request to broadcast anti-Saudi propaganda on Iraqi state-run
television. We know from IIS documents that a "trusted confidante" of bin Laden
stayed for more than two weeks at a posh Baghdad hotel as the guest of the Iraqi
Intelligence Service.

It's a long article, but worth the effort.