Thank you for posting, this is a real treasure-trove of information about the Saddam/Bin Ladin connections.
I like most of us followed this story closely and there is stuff there I didn’t know.
I have always said that the connection between Saddam and Bin Ladin was hiding right out in plain sight: Zawahiri’s group, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, was on Saddam’s payroll. They recruited Bin Ladin and became his inner circle. Everyone has pretended not to notice but its right there for everyone to see.
” this is a real treasure-trove of information about the Saddam/Bin Ladin connections”
? Where do you find even a single bit of hard evidence linking Saddam to bin Laden? I waded through that 2005 Iraq Survey Group report that always gets waved about but which no one ever reads. There is nothing in that report linking Saddam to bin Laden or al Qaeda.
Saddam’s terrorism consisted of killing Iraqis at home and abroad whom he saw as a threat to his regime. Saddam was a secularist who regarded Islamic radicals with suspicion. Saddam had Christians in prominent positions in his own government which ought to be your first clue that Islam was of little interest to him.