The Iraq and Al-Qaida connection...now shutup...

September 11 Commission report (p. 61)

With the Sudanese regime acting as intermediary, Bin Ladin himself met with senior Iraqi intelligence officer in Khartoum in late 1994 or early 1995. Bin Ladin is said to have asked for space to establish training camps, as well as assistance in procuring weapons, but there is no evidence that Iraq responded to this request . . . [but] the ensuing years saw additional efforts to establish connections.

September 11 Commission report (p. 66)

In March 1998, after Bin Ladin's public fatwa against the United States, two al Qaeda members reportedly went to Iraq to meet with Iraqi intelligence. In July, an Iraqi delegation traveled to Afghanistan to meet first with the Taliban and then with Bin Ladin. Sources reported that one, or perhaps both, of these meetings was apparently arranged through Bin Ladin's Egyptian deputy, Zawahiri, who had ties of his own to the Iraqis.

September 11 Commission report (p. 66)

Similar meetings between Iraqi officials and Bin Ladin or his aides may have occurred in 1999 during a period of some reported strains with the Taliban. According to the reporting, Iraqi officials offered Bin Ladin a safe haven in Iraq. Bin Ladin declined, apparently judging that his circumstances in Afghanistan remained more favorable than the Iraqi alternative. The reports describe friendly contacts and indicate some common themes in both sides' hatred of the United States. But to date we have seen no evidence that these or the earlier contacts ever developed into a collaborative operational relationship. Nor have we seen evidence indicating that Iraq cooperated with al Qaeda in developing or carrying out any attacks against the United States. Bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee Report (Conclusion 92, p. 345) The Central Intelligence Agency's examination of contacts, training, safehaven and operational cooperation as indicators of a possible Iraq-al Qaida relationship was a reasonable and objective approach to the question. Bipartisan Senate

September 11 Intelligence Committee Report (Conclusion 93, p. 346)

The Central Intelligence Agency reasonably assessed that there were likely several instances of contacts between Iraq and al-Qaida throughout the 1990s, but that these contacts did not add up to an established formal relationship. Bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee Report (Conclusion 94, p. 346) The Central Intelligence Agency reasonably and objectively assessed in Iraqi Support for Terrorism that the most problematic area of contact between Iraq and al-Qaida were the reports of training in the use of non-conventional weapons, specifically chemical and biological weapons.

Bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee Report (Conclusion 95, p. 347)

The Central Intelligence Agency's assessment on safehaven--that al-Qaida or associated operatives were present in Baghdad and in northeastern Iraq in an area under Kurdish control--was reasonable.

In additon I will add this from National Review Online and stolen from the Big Dog's house site:

Friday, September 10, 2004

Iraq and Terrorism
W. Thomas Smith Jr. writes:"Reflecting on the attacks of September 11, 2001, Navy SEAL Lt. Commander Mark Divine told National Review Online: "There are enormous numbers of foreign fighters in Iraq right now. Whether some of those fighters were there before September 11, 2001, or as a call to arms later, will be argued by both [Democrats and Republicans] until they are blue in the face. What I can tell you is that there is tremendous evidence to suggest there were terrorist training camps in Iraq before 9/11."
"Divine should know. Having just returned from Iraq, where he's been tasked with observing the work of U.S. special-operations forces, he says, "There is no doubt in my mind — or the minds of other SEALs — that the war in Iraq is part of our overall response to what happened in our country, three years ago."