There is good reason for this. Hussein is an evil man but the Bin Laden philosophy is foreign to his world view. Hussein is an avid secularist and his regime gives relative equality to women. He is not a radical Islamist type and never has been. In this respect, his regime represents an affront to the Taliban and Al Quada types. War is a serious business and shadowy and tenuous links (which may also exist to even a greater degree for such diverse countries as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Syria, etc.) do not provide sufficient justification.
The agenda for "taking out" Hussein has little to do with Al Qaeda and much more to do with balance of power politics, "finishing the job" started by Bush I, forcing weapons inspections, pursuing the phantom and utopian goal of creating a "democratic Iraq" as a counterweight to Saudi Arabia, and finally oil. None of these are sufficient to provide an adequate justification for the American people or the rest of the world. Links to Al Quada are merely a pretext to achieve other priorities. In fact, what we have here is a war in search of a pretext.
Yep...those damned Arabs don't deserve representative government. Let 'em keep killing themselves while we sit here and ignore 'em and hope they don't come after us again, right Mr. Chamberlin?!
SHEEEESH...MUD
Time will tell all, and the facts will come out. For now, I know that Bush, Cheney, Powell, and Rumsfeld are not trigger-happy hawks. If they believe it's imperative that Hussein must go, then I figure they must have good reason for that belief. I also know that Hussein's obviously hiding something that he doesn't want the world to know about.
As for your reasoning as to why you think Hussein couldn't possibly be harboring al Qaeda terrorists, have you ever heard the line "the enemy of my enemy is my friend"? If Hussein could help anyone disable America, I believe he'd do it.