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... just how does that show that Saddam was working with Al Qaeda?
By that reasoning, Bush is also an ally of Al Qaeda, and is in part responsible for 9-11, because Al Qaeda had set up sleeper cells in the United States prior to 9-11.
This is utter bulls***. Al-Zarqawi's organization, Ansar Al-Islam, was an avowed enemy of Hussein. Even so, what, exactly, is wrong with the head of a country making a pact with an enemy to help thwart an imminent invasion of the country they both share? IF he was setting up "cells" in Baghdad to counter an imminent invasion, it seems to me that simply amounts to self-defense. And IF he was working with Hussein, why would they have to be "sleeper" cells?
As for the regurgitation of the Atta/Iraq meeting in Prague... PLEASE. It is not simply the FBI and rental car records that have debunked that myth (besides which if I recall, the rental car story was always given with a grain of salt). The alleged meeting has been roundly debunked by the CIA, FBI, foreign intelligence, and Czechoslovakia, and many more thoroughly researched journalistic investigations than the two that Safire has cherry-picked. All he puts forward is "well, you can't prove they DIDN'T meet". Again, with the "disprove a negative" thing!.
Hearsay and rumor do not amount to a cassus belli... especially for an unprecedented pre-emptive war. It seems to me that Safire's column, and the ones to which he cites as providing "missing Links" between Saddam and Al Qaeda, provide nothing of the sort. They merely ask the same old tired questions that have already been thoroughly answered.
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