Saddam and Bin Laden

From The Belmont Club:

Did Saddam Hussein cooperate with al-Qaeda to attack America? The Institute for Defense Analyses survey of Saddam Hussein's relationship to terrorist organizations, based on 600,000 captured documents, categorically concludes they can't find the connection -- there's "no smoking gun (i.e., direct connection) between Saddam's Iraq and al Qaeda" -- but thoroughly documents the Iraqi dictator's systematic use of terrorism to attack Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran, Iraqi dissidents all over the world and, when it suited him, American interests.

The lasting value of the IDA report will be as a portrait of a certain type of Middle Eastern state, for whom terrorism is a normal instrument of policy. Although the report is about Iraq, it could just as easily describe the basic structure of statecraft in Iran, Syria, Egypt, "Palestine" and Saudi Arabia.

Saddam's terror aparatus ran along two tracks. There were the "in-house" killers, composed of intelligence operatives, frequently supported by their diplomatic missions overseas and there were the contractors; some small outfits and others full-service providers in the way that major consulting firms are.

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My Comment: Another excellent read from the Belmont Club. His analysis is dead on.