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Here is how I read this situation. My hypothesis remains: 9/11 was Iraq, the anthrax was Iraq, al Qaeda were just proxies. Even before the 1991 war for Kuwait, the US government planned for an Iraqi terrorist counteroffensive, and that threat did indeed slowly materialize, once Saddam reconsolidated his regime after withdrawing from Kuwait. After the 1993 WTC bombing, Clinton tried to intimidate him back (bombing the Baghdad intelligence HQ in mid-year); after Bojinka was discovered, a Chalabi-led revolt in the north was hastily assembled, then abandoned (see Robert Baer's See No Evil), probably out of fear of Iranian strategic gains, and the CIA tried instead to organize a coup via Allawi, which failed (see, e.g. the Cockburns' Out of the Ashes); and finally, after comprehensive regime change in Iraq became official US policy (late 1998, after the African embassy bombings), Saddam would have activated his Samson Option, the threat of WMD terrorism using anthrax. Bush 43 came to office preparing to overthrow Saddam, probably on the model subsequently employed in Afghanistan (US special forces working with indigenous allies, rather than an occupation by the regular army), but 9/11 happened first, and the anthrax threat was explicitly tabled. Everything that happened afterwards revolved around removing Saddam from power (i) without triggering an anthrax attack (ii) without exposing the increasingly egregious deceptions which accompanied the covert war with Saddam in the 1990s. That second constraint is what's behind the "release" of Taha and Ammash, on my view. Despite the restoration of Iraqi sovereignty, they, like Saddam, have been in the custody of US forces, because they know too much; and they are being shuffled out of Iraq, probably to a closely monitored exile in a US-friendly country, lest the truth should come out in court. Since the full truth is presumably only known to a small circle of people (at the apex of the US government, or intimately involved with the pre-9/11 conflict), the people in Iraq immediately responsible for Taha and Ammash's fate would need to be given other reasons for their release (such as this line about pacifying the Sunni insurgents).