Our friendly neighbourhood conservatives don't seem too inclined to engage in actual debate here...just snipe an' run! Wonder why?

About the "link" between Saddam and Al-Quaeda. There was one piece of very surprising, possibly authentic evidence discovered in a Baghdad government office, which was allegedly found by a reporter for the (relatively liberal, or at least Liberal) Toronto Star. A credible source, and the discovery was made fresh on the liberation of Baghdad--if it was a put-up job, it was well done. But the reporter says the CIA was in the room and gone again before he found the document. Maybe that's why this specific incident was such a three-day wonder in the media...

The document indicated that some sort of Al-Quaeda emissary spent a couple of weeks in Baghdad in 1999 and may have met and possibly discussed some kind of diplomatic relations between A-Q and the Saddam regime. bin Laden's name was "whited out" in several places! Subtle what. Of course, the enmity between those two groups is well known. There is no evidence that anything ever came of this visit, but you can call it a "link". Somebody went to Iraq and talked to somebody else. One single solitary contact, documented by one single paper record. By the same token, there have been lots of "links" between David Trimble and Gerry Adams but they don't exactly seem to be in each others' pockets, do they?   

Here's the CBC version of the story:
http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2003/04/26/saddam_osama030426


There were certainly lots of direct "links" between active Al-Quaeda members and American flying schools, but I don't see the U.S. air force bombing the flying schools into the stone age..."link" is a pretty weak word to be using, it's there because they can't prove any more substantial collaboration.


W-O