9/11 Commission Report: Final Report Documents Iraq/alQaeda Link
Here are a few quotes from the body of the report:
Page 66:
In March 1998, after Bin Ladins public fatwa against the United States, two al Qaeda members reportedly went to Iraq to meet with Iraq intelligence. In July, an Iraqi delegation traveled to Afghanistan to meet first with the Taliban and then with Bin Ladin. Sources reported that one, or perhaps both of these meetings was apparently arranged through Bin Ladins Egyptian deputy, Zawahiri, who had ties of his own to the Iraqis.
Page 66:
According to the reporting, Iraqi officials offered Bin Ladin a safe haven in Iraq. Bin Ladin declined, apparently judging that his circumstances in Afghanistan remained more favorable than the Iraqi alternative. The reports describe friendly contacts and indicate some common themes in both sides hatred of the United States.
Page 128:
On November 4, 1998, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York unsealed its indictment of Bin Ladin, charging him with conspiracy to attack U.S. defense installations. The indictment also charged that al Qaeda had allied itself with Sudan, Iran, and Hezbollah. The original sealed indictment had added that al Qaeda had reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the Government of Iraq.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1182042/posts
An Iraqi defector to Turkey, known by his cover name as "Abu Mohammed," told Gwynne Roberts of the Sunday Times of London that he saw bin Laden's fighters in camps in Iraq in 1997. At the time, Mohammed was a colonel in Saddam's Fedayeen. He described an encounter at Salman Pak, the training facility southeast of Baghdad. At that vast compound run by Iraqi intelligence, Muslim militants trained to hijack planes with knives -- on a full-size Boeing 707. Col. Mohammed recalls his first visit to Salman Pak this way: "We were met by Colonel Jamil Kamil, the camp manager, and Major Ali Hawas. I noticed that a lot of people were queuing for food. (The major) said to me: 'You'll have nothing to do with these people. They are Osama bin Laden's group and the PKK and Mojahedin-e Khalq.'"
You beat me to it--the 9/11 commission report--just as you aptly posted--debunks the conventional "wisdom" on Iraq & Al Qaeda.