"Saddam was also funding terrorists in the Middle East and elsewhere."
Exactly! Saddam's terrorist-ties, alone, were enough reason to depose this threat. What many liberals ignore is that even "before" 9/11, Al Qaeda and Al-Zarqawi were courting the Arabs and Kurds in N. Iraq in an effort to create AQs new affilate...Ansar Al-Islam. In August 2001, leaders of several Kurdish Islamist factions reportedly visited the al-Qaeda leadership in Afghanistan with the goal of creating an alternate base for the organization in northern Iraq. Soon thereafter, Ansar al-Islam was created using $600,000 in al-Qaeda seed money, with even perhaps as much as $35,000 donated directly from the Mukhabarat branch of Iraqi Intelligence Service.
This callaboration was further substantiated during the Afghanistan War, when a document found in an al-Qaeda guest house by the NY Times discussed the creation of an "Iraqi Kurdistan Islamic Brigade" which vowed to "expel those Jews and Christians from Kurdistan and join the way of Jihad, [and] rule every piece of land...with the Islamic Shari'a rule."
As the Afghanistan War wore on, it wasn't a conicidence that many remnants from the Taliban and AQ were finding themselves within this newly created "affiliate" in N. Iraq. Human Rights Watch even confirmed this when they visited the region and reported that hundreds of foreign fighters from Afghanistan were joining up with Ansar, some from as early as September, 2001 (even before the Afghanistan War). Adding further evidence to this collusion was HRW's own interviews of Ansar al-Islam members in PUK custody, who according to HRW, "described in credible detail training in al-Qa'ida camps in Afghanistan."
Heck, after Zarqawi was injured in the Afghanistan War...and even before the war in Iraq began, he found himself being treated in a Baghdad hospital owned by one of Saddam's son...only to leave with his Egyptian Islamic Jihad followers and later meet up with Ansar. This action completely contradicts the claims of those who said Saddam would never ally himself with these "radical" Islamic groups for fear of being overthrown. If that were true, AZ woud've never left Baghdad alive. In fact, this alliance was quite reasonable...not just because of their shared hatred of America, but because Ansar was doing something for Saddam that Saddam could no longer do for himself; Ansar was attacking the two largest Kurdish factions (PUK and KDP) in N. Iraq...which had long been the biggest threat to Saddam.
Evidence suggests that the very creation of Ansar Al-Islam may have been as a secondary base of operation should America succeed in ousting the Taliban and AQ. And this is important because after the destruction of the terrorists camps in Afghanistan, the sancturaries for these terrorists were running thin. In fact, over the last decade, AQ and their more radical elements had been getting kicked out of their own homelands and host countries.
From Saudi Arabia to Egypt to Lebanon to Jordan...and even terrorists supporters like Syria and Libya, these countries no longer wanted these groups operating from within their borders. With Sudan offering up UBL and even Musharif in Pakistan joining the WOT, there were little places left for AQ to coalesce, especially after 9/11 and the retribution America was now seeking. No one wanted these groups for fear the US would make their state the next target in the WOT. Even Iran supposedly expelled Zarqawi after it was learned he may hiding there....which is when he supposedly made his way to Baghdad.
The simple fact is the war in Afghanistan made Iraq a natural choice for these groups. Saddam already had the propencity for harboring wanted terrorists; he had already offered safe-havens to both Abu Abass and Abu Nidal--two of the world's most wanted terrorists. As Reuter's reported...and was later confirmed, Nidal entered Baghdad just days before Clinton's Dec. 16, 1998 bombing of Iraq. A brief history of Nidal shows that he and his group were responsible for the killings of over 900 people in over 20 countries. Nidal was a leader in the PLO...and after leaving them, formed his own group, the Abu Nidal Organization, which operated at an even more violent level. Nidal was once America's most wanted terrorist and a 1989 State Department report called his organization the most dangerous terrorist group in the world.
Since the 9/11 attack, it was learned that two of the hijackers...Mohamed Atta and Ziad Jarrah, had very close relations with Nidal. Nidal is to be believed to have met with several of these radicals in helping them to draw up plans against American interests...which may explain his untimely death. Further confirmation of these alliances may be found in the fact that after the first 1993 WTC attack, Abdul Rahman Yasin, the man who mixed the chemicals for the World Trade Center attack in 1993, subsequently sought and found refuge in Baghdad. Coincidence? Not if you believe this and what others have said about Ramsey Yousif being a former Iraqi Intelligence officer.
The same was also true for Abu Abass. This convicted Palestinian terrorist...and the mastermind behind the Achille Lauro hijacking, had been calling Baghdad his home since 1994...under Saddam's personal protection. Abbas was the leader of another Palestinian terror organization (PLF) that, after leaving Tunisia, set up shop in Iraq. These alliances with both Abu's were very convenient, as Saddam became one of the largest providers of finanical and material support to Palestinian suicide bombers, offering up to $25,000 to the families of these killers.
In Iraq, Abbas operated with impuinity as he became the intermediary between Saddam and the Palestinians, were both financal and material support flowed directly from Saddam to the blood-filled streets of Israel...with the PLF setting up terrorist training camps right in Iraq. Between the two Abu's...and the material support flowing between them from Saddam...and Hamas and Hezbullah, Iraq was already one of the largest terrorist havens in the world, complete with a terrorist training center at Salman Pak.
For those who truly seek peace in the ME...especially between Israel and the Palestinians, that peace would've never had a chance with Saddam in power financing these organizations. This reason alone, makes the ouster of Saddam a legitimate cause, especially since Saddam's harboring of any terrorists was prohibited by the Gulf War Cease Fire and following UN resolutions.