Exhaustive review sponsored by the Pentagon finds NO link between Saddam, al Qaida

dapperdan said

I guess the Saddam ties to al Qaeda that has been debated boils down to how narrowly one wants to define al Qaeda. Per the report, Saddam apparently had very direct ties to Zawahiri's Islamic Jihad, which is the organization that merged with al Qaeda, and now comprises roughly 2/3 of al Qaeda.

Click to expand...

I read this whole post and concluded that this "new" information is nothing more than an elaborate spin to somehow connect Hussein in a very elaborate fashion to Al-Queda.

So Hussein had ties to Zawahiri's Islamic Jihad, which eventually merged with Al-Queda. Further, this part of the post is key:

"Captured documents reveal that the regime (of Saddam) was willing to co-opt or support organisations it knew to be part of al-Qa'ida, as long as that organisation's near-term goals supported Saddam's long-term vision." This included, for example, Saddam providing financial support for Egyptian Islamic Jihad, led by Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden's deputy."

So in other words, Hussein might have been willing to cooperate more with Al-Queda on his terms.

Okay.