"(Not surprising, or even remarkable ; but worth keeping in mind when someone declares the sectarian Iraqis and fanatically religious Taliban could not possibly have had common interests.)"
The claim that Saddam would never allign himself with the radical Islamists is one of the most disengenuous claims one could make. In fact, this alliance was quite reasonable when you look at how it benefited both sides.
One only has to look at the establishment of Ansar Al-Islam in N. Iraq and see where Saddam was going with this. While many libs have tried to make this look like an independent group of Arabs and Kurds out to establish a soverign nation, the fact is, 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.
In other words, before the Iraq War, before the Afghanistan War...and even before 9/11, certain groups of Arabs and Kurds were colluding with Al-Qaeda in an attempt to establish a new AQ affiliate in N. Iraq. This colaboration was even 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..." This was going to be the establishment of another Taliban-like organization in N. Iraq...with the blessing of Saddam.
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." 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 (long before the Afghanistan War).
Adding further evidence to this colaboration was HRW's own interviews of Ansar al-Islam members in PUK custody, who according to them, "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 brethren who accompanied him, and later meet up with Ansar.
But what's most important is that 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 Saddam/Ansar/AQ alliance was quite reasonable...not just because of their shared hatred of America, but because Ansar itself 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 thorn in his side. Since the establishment of the no-fly zones in the North, Saddam no longer had any control over this Kurdish region. With this new alliance, Saddam could kill two birds with one stone; he could remove his Kurdish problem...and directly finance and fund this newly established AQ affiliate within his borders.
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 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 made his way to Baghdad.
The idea that Saddam and Iraq were some how disconnected from terrorists and terrorism before the Iraq War is one of the greatest frauds perpetrated on the American people. Ansar's cooperative relationship with Al-Qaeda began "before" 9/11...and was only growing stronger. With the collapse of the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan as a result of that war...and the influx of foreign fighters into Iraq "before" this war even began, Iraq was guaranteed to become an even greater threat.
In fact, unlike Afghanistan and the Taliban, what made Iraq even more dangerous is that you had a Saddam with unlimited resources to continue funding these groups at a more significant level than Afghanistan could've ever done. And for those who don't think this was a real threat, you don't have to look any further than Saddam's record of harboring other terrorists. From Abu Abbass to Abu Nidal and their PLO affiliates, Saddam's was already one of the largest supporters of terrorists activities...complete with a training camp at Salman Pak.
Putting aside the WMD argument, these terrorist connections were the most significant reason that Saddam had to be removed. And for those who still aren't convinced of this alliance, you don't have to look any further than Clinton's own DOJ that unveiled a sealed indictment of UBL in 1998. The indictment, unsealed later that same year, stated that "Al Qaeda reached an agreement with Iraq not to work against the regime of Saddam Hussein and that they would work cooperatively with Iraq, particularly in weapons development."
When you consider the fraud that was the Oil for Food Program...which only continued to enrich Saddam, and the attempts by several nations to totally remove the sanctions, Saddam in no way was ever "contained"...nor would he be. In fact, his resources continued to grow as a result of this program as he spread this wealth to his terrorists counterparts. Saddam had to go WMDs or not.
One conversation John had with his sister in the summer of 2001 stuck in his mind for a different reason.
''So she goes, 'Listen, the gulf war isn't over,''' he told me over dinner at a sushi place on the Sunset Strip.
'''There are plans in effect right now. They will be raining down on us from the skies.''' His sister told him that Lower Manhattan would be destroyed. ''And I was like, Yeah, whatever,'' he continued. When he woke up six weeks later to the news that two planes had crashed into the twin towers, and watched as ash settled on the window ledge of his sublet in Brooklyn, he had a dislocating sense of having his reality replaced by Susan's strange world -- an experience he would have again when he learned that his sister had been arrested by the F.B.I.
Parke Godfrey, a close friend of Lindauer's for the last 15 years, is a professor of computer science at York University in Ontario. He says that Lindauer warned him not to take a job at N.Y.U. the summer before the Sept. 11 attacks. That Lindauer's outlandish predictions actually came true, Godfrey suggests, further encouraged the exalted sense of personal mission that brought her to Washington in the first place.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1202474/posts