With all due respect, Mavdog, I believe the goal line is moving.
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There is absolutely NO linkage between al Queda and Hussein, ...
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is not the same as
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They (Iraqis) were in no way connected with 9/11.
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Even so, there is considerable evidence of linkage between al Quaeda and Hussein's government, dating back more than a decade, and from multiple intelligence agencies and sources, both foreign and domestic.
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It's pretty dry reading, but I"ll give you the conclusion up front:
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...CIA and FBI officials are methodically reviewing Iraqi intelligence files that survived the three-week war last spring. These documents would cover several miles if laid end-to-end. And they are in Arabic. They include not only connections between bin Laden and Saddam, but also revolting details of the regime's long history of brutality. It will be a slow process.
So Feith's memo to the Senate Intelligence Committee is best viewed as sort of a "Cliff's Notes" version of the relationship. It contains the highlights, but it is far from exhaustive.
Was Shakir an Iraqi agent? Does he provide a connection between Saddam Hussein and September 11? We don't know. We may someday find out.
But there can no longer be any serious argument about whether Saddam Hussein's Iraq worked with Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda to plot against Americans.
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So while not yet providing the DNA-fingerprint of Iraq on 9-11 that some seem to seek, there is substantial basis to establish the plausibility of Iraqi involvement, perhaps even a probability.
One might (more or less legitimately) raise the question of whether captured Iraqi agents were providing credible evidence, but when the reports come from multiple sources, over an extended period of time, and in many cases corroborated independently, then I think the individual facts are not so easily dismissed.
After the U.S. was attacked, it rightly, justly and appropriately began a policy of pre-emptive deterrence--not sitting around waiting for another attack to provide the justification for further response, but identifying the most likely threats and eliminating both them and their sources of support. And as these intelligence reports show, there was plenty of reason to regard Iraq as a threat because of its past support of and contacts with al-Quaeda.
This is what's most maddeningly hypocritical to me--the same Dim-wits who criticize the Bush administration for not doing enough in its 8 months in office to prevent an unpreventable attack, then turn around and in the next breath criticize the Bush administration for having gone too far to avert future threats. This type of opposition is patently unprincipled and transparently political.