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

DadsDream said
"direct operational link"

Because he had no operational links doesn't rule out tactical or strategic links.

Before everybody gets all wrapped around the axle, this is a Pentagon-sponsored study.

Look up the military meaning of the term "operational."

Definition: (DOD) The level of war at which campaigns and major operations are planned, conducted, and sustained to accomplish strategic objectives within theaters or areas of operations. Activities at this level link tactics and strategy by establishing operational objectives needed to accomplish the strategic objectives, sequencing events to achieve the operational objectives, initiating actions, and applying resources to bring about and sustain these events. These activities imply a broader dimension of time or space than do tactics; they ensure the logistic and administrative support of tactical forces, and provide the means by which tactical successes are exploited to achieve strategic objectives.

http://usmilitary.about.com/od/glossarytermso/g/o4531.htm

In other words, he had no major campaigns planned with them. That doesn't rule out tactical or even strategic warfare.

Once again, some media yahoo who doesn't have a clue has taken a Pentagon report and read into it without studyiing it.

Saddam, whose regime was relentlessly secular, was wary of Islamic extremist groups such as al Qaida...

He had no links to Al Queda.

The study was based on EXHAUSTIVE review of Iraqi documents. What that says to me is that there was nothing in those documents that indicated any cooperation with Al Queda aimed the United States ON ANY LEVEL.

According the maxim of "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer" I would expect some indirect contact through operatives with Islamic extremists in order to keep tabs on them, not to attack the U.S.

You know quite well that if there was any evidence of ANY type of cooperaton in those documents -- operational, tactical or startegic -- there would have been a special issue of the Weekly Standard devoted to it and you would have already seen the Sean hannity hosted documentary about it on Fox News.

It's just not there on any level.

Spin on.