And don’t forget: Saddam used WMD.
**9/11 Commissioner Bob Kerrey on the Iraq-Al Qaeda Connections. Bob Kerrey had to have known about this meeting that already had been disclosed. It’s notable, but not terribly surprising, that Saddam gave permission for this meeting which is what this latest document dump revealed. Stephen Hayes has reported about this meeting in his book, “The Connection,” and subsequent articles in the Weekly Standard. If Bob Kerrey is surprised at the extent of the connections between these two people and groups then I want a 9/11 Commission do-over because these people DIDN’T DO THEIR JOBS!

“I personally and strongly believe you don’t have to prove that Iraq was collaborating against Osama bin Laden on the September 11 attacks to prove he was an enemy [of the U.S.] and that he would collaborate with people who would do our country harm,” the Nebraska Democrat explained.

Here’s the latest on the exploited docs found in post Saddam/war Iraq from ABC news:

A newly released pre-war Iraqi document indicates that an official representative of Saddam Hussein’s government met with Osama bin Laden in Sudan on February 19, 1995 after approval by Saddam Hussein.

That OBL and the Taliban are in contact with Iraq and that a group of Taliban and bin Laden group members visited Iraq [1995].
That the U.S. has proof the Iraqi government and “bin Laden’s group” agreed to cooperate to attack targets inside America.
That in case the Taliban and bin Laden’s group turn out to be involved in “these destructive operations,” the U.S. may strike Iraq and Afghanistan [2001].
That the Afghani consul heard about the issue of Iraq’s relationship with “bin Laden’s group” while he was in Iran.

The last line in Stephen Hayes latest article in the Weekly Standard [see previous posts here and here.]about captured Iraqi documents in post war Iraq that connect Abu Sayyaf, the Phillippine terror group headed by Osama bin Laden’s brother-in-law with Iraqi officials and specifically Saddam’s right hand man. He quotes from the latest Foreign Affairs whose reporters have seen even more of the captured docs:

The Saddam Fedayeen also took part in the regime’s domestic terrorism operations and planned for attacks throughout Europe and the Middle East. IN a document dated May 1999, Saddam’s older son, Uday, ordered preparations for “special operations, assassinations, and bombings, for the centers and traitor symbols in London, Iran and the self ruled areas [Kurdistan].” Preparations for “Blessed July” a regime directed wave of “martyrdom” operations against targets in the West, were well under way at the time of the coalition invasion.

So…are we to divine that Saddam, in addition to funding the terrorists in the Phillippines, Hamas, and Al Qaeda, also funded the July Londistan attacks?
Hitchens, meantime, in the latest Opinion Journal piece, claims that “Iraq is no ‘distraction’ from al Qaeda. ***NEW*** Here’s Hitchens on Hugh Hewitt’s show on how the media *of course* have an impact on the war effort! Quoting from a letter the Kurds intercepted in February 2004 from Zarqawi to bin Laden on his plan to start sectarian strife in Iraq :

“These [Shiites] in our opinion are the key to change. I mean that targeting and hitting them in their religious, political and military depth will provoke them to show the Sunnis their rabies…and bare the teeth of the hidden rancor working in their breasts. If we succeed in dragging them into the arena of sectarian war, it will become possible to awaken the inattentive Sunnis as they feel imminent danger.”