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1994, also was the year in which Wahhabi clerics were added to the Iraqi government payroll Nir Rosen, Asia Times, 3-26-04
By the late 1990’s, religious Islamic studies were being taught at all levels of Iraq’s education system and Saddam Hussein was donating his blood to write portions of a Quran in one of Iraq’s most expensive mosques Jerrold M. Post and Amatzia Baram, "Saddam is Iraq: Iraq is Saddam", Ch.7, p.43-45
In 1999, it was common knowledge that Saddam Hussein had a standing offer of safe haven in Iraq open to Wahhabist Osama bin Laden. CNN, 2-13-99
CNN’s Mike Boettcher said that Saddam Hussein’s regime had been bringing Wahhabi fighters into Iraq from Saudi Arabia and elsewhere since 2000, CNN, 12-14-03 although
former CIA director James Woolsey said it began much earlier than that. David Neiwert, Salon, 9-21-01
Saad Fagih, a Saudi-dissident, echoed the comments of U.S. officials who told the AP that Saddam Hussein began inviting Saudi extremists into Iraq years before the 2003 invasion. Sscherezade Faramarzi, Associated Press, 6-1-05
In an interview with Mahan Abedin of the Jamestown Foundation, Iraq’s Ambassador the United Nations, Hamid al-Bayati, said “the Baathists invited foreign fighters into Iraq. This is an old and deep-rooted alliance”, when asked about how and when foreign fighters began entering the country. Mahan Abedin, Jamestown Foundation, 6-21-04
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