Using the Simpson Jury standard for reasonable doubt, there is no such thing as actionable intelligence.
I guess so, but that's an apples and oranges comparison. Intelligence doesn't have to be perfect. It never did, and it never will. It just has to be credible, and confirmed by other sources. This bin Laden stuff may sounds scary, but it's child's play next to some reports floating around. You could stack every impressive sounding CIA report on top of each other, and they'd reach halfway to the moon. Volume doesn't mean anything without reliability or (non circular) confirmation.
Just for the record, do you personally believe there was a connection between al Qaeda and Saddam? Don't tell me your personal beliefs don't matter, I already know that. I'm asking anyway, in the interest of putting our cards on the table here.
A connection, meaning what? That he had his intelligence guys in contact with AQ agents? Absolutely. That's par for the course in that neighborhood. If we wanted to lay our cards down on the table, we could indict Saudi Arabia, Iran, Jordan, or any number of countries as having links to al-Qa'ida. Does that mean they're actively plotting attacks against the U.S., or that they're running a robust intelligence service? The kind that we wish we had, that actually had links and insight to potential troublemakers.
I'm not convinced that there were any operational links between AQ and Saddam, and given the Administration's stance, I doubt anyone in the U.S government really thinks there were either. That doesn't make Saddam innocent, or invading Iraq a bad idea, by any means. Just that his links to AQ were the prudent kind that a tyrant in the region would want.
Abdul Rahman Yasin entered the US on an authentic Iraqi passport along with Ramzi Yousef, made the bomb Yousef used to blow up the parking garage of the WTC and fled to Baghdad, where he lived -- on a government stipend, in an apartment provided by the regime -- for a decade. Yousef's computer in the Philippines was later recovered with early plans for a 9/11 style attack and the Operation: Bonjinka attack (which al Qaeda attempted again in August, 2006).
The relationship between Yousef and Khalid Sheik Mohamed (nephew and uncle) -- as well as the plans found on Yousef's computer -- establish a direct link between Yousef and what we now know as al Qaeda, thus a link between the February 1993 WTC attack and the WTC attack of September 2001 is also established. Yasin's passport, the 50 phone calls he made to Baghdad in the days before the '93 attack (they're a matter of court record), and his decade of safe-haven in Baghdad establish a link between Saddam and the 1993 attack. It doesn't prove that Saddam gave the order for the attack, but it shows direct and irrefutable linkage between himself and the perpetrators of the attack.
What kind of evidence do we need to establish more than a casual relationship between Saddam and al Qaeda? They operated freely in his country (Ansar al Islam, Abu Musab al Zarqawi), they found shelter there after committing direct attacks on the US homeland (Yasin), he provided the only known terrorist training camp in the world where a plane was used to teach unarmed hijackings (Salman Pak) -- precisely the type used on September 11, and nowhere else ever. His diplomats were expelled for aiding al Qaeda terrorists in the Czech Republic, they were expelled from the Philippines for aiding Abu Sayef terrorists (an AQ affiliate). Really, what kind of hard evidence are we expecting a billionaire dictator with unlimited intelligence and military resources at his disposal to leave around for us to find? His voice on tape ordering specific attacks? Detailed, hand-written plans with Saddam's signature? What exactly?