1: "Saddam opposed the 9-11 attack?????

He was the ONLY national leader and head of state in the world to publicly applaud it FFS - Not even Iran with its now long standing tradition of the Post-Friday call to prayer "Death to America" chants dating back to 1979 were stupid enough to do that.

As Wiki would appear to be your source de jour:

"Almost all Muslim political and religious leaders condemned the attacks. The leaders vehemently denouncing the attacks included the leaders of Egypt (Hosni Mubarak), the Palestinian Authority (Yasser Arafat), Libya (Muammar Gaddafi), Syria (Bashar al-Assad), Iran (Mohamed Khatami) and Pakistan (Pervez Musharraf). The sole exception was Iraq, when the then-president Saddam Hussein, said of the attacks that "the American cowboys are reaping the fruit of their crimes against humanity".

2: "no operational link between Saddam and al-Qaeda was found"

I do not believe that I have ever said that such an "operational" link ever existed. But that is not what you originally said, which was there was no Al-Qaeda presence in Iraq prior to the 2003 invasion which was incorrect. In Afghanistan prior to the intervention of the US on the side of the Northern Alliance in October 2001, Al-Qaeda fostered and supported both Mullah Krekar's and Abu Mousa Zarqawi's groups and they both fled Afghanistan for Iraq in 2001/2002 where they were given shelter and support.

3: "and, what's more, the ideological differences between them precluded such a link."

Ever heard of the Charles Dudley Warner quote: "Politics makes strange bed-fellows"? Best example of all being Churchill & Stalin.

4: "Why is it that you always seem to want to twist history into a sort of rickety Heath Robinson version, "I'll change the facts to get my story to work even if it kills me", sort of thing?"

Well actually I don't Steve - that sort of thing I leave to you - I normally do not only offer my opinions and statements, I give my reasons for believing them and provide my sources and my references - you when confronted normally retreat behind the excuse of ignorance on the particular subject, best and most recent example of this being the First World War threads.