"The argument on this thread about whether there was a Saddam/AQ connection has devolved to the issue of whether Saddam had sufficient control on the ground in the northern no fly zone to be credibly connected with the Ansar Al Islam camp there. "
Which is a red herring anyway.
Saddam gave this group money. Iraqi intelligence officers were 'embedded' in the organization.
He also gave money to Hamas in the West Bank and Algerian GIA terrorists. No-one is insisting that saddam needed to 'control' those other areas to help terrorist groups working in the area.
saddam was using ansar al-islam as a counterweight to kurdish militias that the west was protecting under no-fly zones.
Lest we forget, Saddam bankrolled and harbored Abu Nidal ... so did Saddam have to 'control' the seas to support this? ...
http://www.intelmessages.org/Messages/National_Security/wwwboard/messages_04/7234.html Iraq used the Arab Liberation Front and the Ba‘ath Party in Palestinian-controlled areas as "payment contractors," Ehrlich says--part of a policy to encourage suicide-bombing attacks. Another organization, the Palestinian Liberation Front (PLF), headed by Mohammad Zaydan (aka Abu Abbas), was used by Iraq "as an operational tool for carrying out terrorist attacks against Israel." The PLF hijacked the Italian Achille Lauro cruise ship in 1986, tossing wheelchair-bound U.S. citizen Leon Klinghoffer overboard simply because he was a Jew.
You have contributed greatly to this thread today and I thank you.