INDISPUTABLY (via Robert Schwartz):

Iraq & Militant Islam: Saddam’s al Qaeda links were a worthy rationale for toppling his regime. (Andrew C. McCarthy, 6/01/04, National Review)

“We will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime." — President George W. Bush, September 20, 2001

Saddam Hussein's Iraqi regime indisputably harbored terrorists and supported terrorism. Under the Bush Doctrine that won resounding bipartisan assent in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, and that remains as worthy today as it was back then, that should have been more than enough to justify deposing Saddam, even if there had not been ample evidence of — and decisive consensus about — his intentions and wherewithal regarding weapons of mass destruction.

Yet, although there should be few, if any, matters more important to national security than boring into the linkage between Iraq and militant Islamic terror, the very idea of linkage has been discredited. Thanks to a withering campaign waged by ideological opponents of U.S. military operations against Iraq — led by the mainstream media, partisans such as former Clinton counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke, and disgruntled factions of the so-called intelligence community whose anonymous carping to sympathetic journalists has now reached a fever pitch — conventional wisdom now holds that secular Saddam could not conceivably have collaborated with Osama bin Laden's jihadist network.

It is, however, pigheaded blindness masquerading as wisdom. There are abundant strands of connection. It is, moreover, breathtakingly irresponsible for the press generally, and for an intelligence community purportedly dedicated to securing America from further attacks, to be ignoring or dismissing countless salient questions, rather than moving heaven and earth to answer them. There is good reason to think we have convicted several terrorists in this country on less proof than already exists regarding Saddam's Iraq. What's more, these linkage questions are not going away.

That is largely because some praiseworthy journalism is not going to let them. Most significant is the assiduous detective work of The Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes, who has been investigating and writing about the links for months. Hayes's new book, The Connection, is being released today. It comprehensively lays out a mosaic of operational ties, and questions that Americans, far from brushing aside, should be demanding answers to. Further, the Wall Street Journal is on the case with vital new information, as are other investigative journalists such as Edward Jay Epstein. The issues they are raising may ultimately shape the legacy of the Iraq war, illustrating, in a way the Bush administration has abysmally failed to, that overthrowing Saddam's regime was a logical and worthy progression in the war against militant Islam.

Of the utmost urgency are indications, continuing to emerge, that Iraq forged operational ties with al Qaeda, sought to conduct terrorist attacks against the United States, and may in fact have had a hand in the 9/11 attacks. The focus of this evidence is the Iraqi Intelligence Service and its apparent ties with not one but at least three leaders of the suicide hijacking plot: Mohammed Atta, Khalid al-Midhar, and Nawaf al-Hazmi.

There's one especially amusing aspect of the Saddam/al Qaeda connection, Terrorist behind September 11 strike was trained by Saddam (Con Coughlin, 14/12/2003, Daily Telegraph)

Iraq's coalition government claims that it has uncovered documentary proof that Mohammed Atta, the al-Qaeda mastermind of the September 11 attacks against the US, was trained in Baghdad by Abu Nidal, the notorious Palestinian terrorist.

Details of Atta's visit to the Iraqi capital in the summer of 2001, just weeks before he launched the most devastating terrorist attack in US history, are contained in a top secret memo written to Saddam Hussein, the then Iraqi president, by Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti, the former head of the Iraqi Intelligence Service. [...]

The second part of the memo, which is headed "Niger Shipment", contains a report about an unspecified shipment - believed to be uranium - that it says has been transported to Iraq via Libya and Syria.

Although Iraqi officials refused to disclose how and where they had obtained the document, Dr Ayad Allawi, a member of Iraq's ruling seven-man Presidential Committee, said the document was genuine.

"We are uncovering evidence all the time of Saddam's involvement with al-Qaeda," he said. "But this is the most compelling piece of evidence that we have found so far. It shows that not only did Saddam have contacts with al-Qaeda, he had contact with those responsible for the September 11 attacks."

Dr. Allawi is, of course, the new president of Iraq, forced upon an unwilling Bush Administration...

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 2, 2004 10:48 PM