Mr Allawi is earning his allowance. He's releasing information plumbed from Saddam's governments' files to turn up any links between rat-hole boy and al-Qaeda. Here's
the best they could do so far.
IRAQ: FORMER PM REVEALS SECRET SERVICE DATA ON BIRTH OF AL-QAEDA IN IRAQ
Baghdad, 23 May (AKI) - The number two of the al-Qaeda network, Ayman al-Zawahiri, visited Iraq under a false name in September 1999 to take part in the ninth Popular Islamic Congress, former Iraqi premier Iyad Allawi has revealed to pan-Arab daily al-Hayat. In an interview, Allawi made public information discovered by the Iraqi secret service in the archives of the Saddam Hussein regime, which sheds light on the relationship between Saddam Hussein and the Islamic terrorist network. He also said that both al-Zawahiri and Jordanian militant al-Zarqawi probably entered Iraq in the same period.
"Al-Zawahiri was summoned by Izza Ibrahim Al-Douri – then deputy head of the council of the leadership of the revolution - to take part in the congress, along with some 150 other Islamic figures from 50 Muslim countries," Allawi said.
According to Allawi, important information has been gathered regarding the presence of another key terrorist figure operating in Iraq - the Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
"The Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi entered Iraq secretly in the same period," Allawi affirmed, "and began to form a terrorist cell, even though the Iraqi services do not have precise information on his entry into the country," he said.
Not content with these facts, our friends on the right are trying to edit these realities judiciously in order to make the case that Iraq somehow sponsored al-Qaeda and its efforts to build a cell in Iraq.
Note that the same criterion is not being made with regards the al-Qaeda cells in Florida.