Saddam's support for terror and culpability in all WTC attacks.

Christopher Hitchens . . . : "When I went to interview Abu Nidal, then the most wanted terrorist in the world, in Baghdad, he was operating out of an Iraqi government office. He was an arm of the Iraqi State, while being the most wanted man in the world. The same is true of the shelter and safe house offered by the Iraqi government, [sic] to the murderers of Leon Klinghoffer, and to Mr. Yassin, who mixed the chemicals for the World Trade Center bombing in 1993".

From Dissecting Leftism.

Some of the anti-Iraq war types deride the proposition that Saddam had a connection with the events of 9/11. Whether that is true the Colonel doesn't know just now. However, his harboring of people involved in the 1993 bombing of the WTC makes him an active participant in a bombing attack on the WTC. How is Saddam's 1993 complicity different from, say, having provided false passports to the 9/11 hijackers? The only diffference between the two events was that the first was unsuccessful. It was no less monstrous in conception.

John Hawkins in "Debunking 8 Anti-War Myths About The Conflict In Iraq," Right Wing News, Item # 6, makes this comment on the above quote:

Mr. Hitchens is entirely correct. Saddam provided "safe haven" for terrorists with "global reach." Among them were terrormaster Abu Nidal, Abdul Rahman Yassin, one of the conspirators in the 1993 WTC bombing, "Khala Khadr al-Salahat, the man who reputedly made the bomb for the Libyans that brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over...Scotland,"Abu Abbas, mastermind of the October 1985 Achille Lauro hijacking and murder of Leon Klinghoffer," & "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, formerly the director of an al Qaeda training base in Afghanistan" who is now believed to be leading Al-Qaeda's forces in Iraq.

Without question, Saddam Hussein had extensive ties to terrorism.

See Item # 7 for the Iraq-al Quaida connection:

While there may not be evidence that Saddam and Al-Qaeda cooperated in attacks on the United States, the evidence that Saddam Hussein's Iraq and Al-Qaeda worked together is absolutely undeniable.

Thus, the Colonel suggests that the breast beating about Mr. Bush's WMD claims (but one of several points he made about Iraq) is simply a purposeful and spurious distraction from the real issue, viz., the advisability of punishing Saddam.

If a Democratic Iraq can come out of the whole operation, so much the better.

The important point is that in the hierarchy of criminality, President Bush moved down one notch in this list to item 2:

1. Direct participation in terrorist acts.
2. Cooperation with terrorist actors.
3. Providing financial support for terrorist acts or organizations.

That is a salutary step away from the legal hairsplitting over whether there is direct evidence of participation into the more easily provable realm of providing support. Saddam can be said to have gone down simply for this and the educational and inspirational benefits to the U.S. and the West are immense.

The retaliation on those in 1 and 2 should be vicious and sustained.

We can do this now at less cost than we can later at much greater cost. A nuclear Iran simply cannot happen. A nuclear Pakistan is still in the unacceptable category.

UPDATE 7/26/05: Case Closed. The U.S. government's secret memo detailing cooperation between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. by Stephen F. Hayes, The Weekly Standard, 11/24/2003, Volume 009, Issue 11.

From: The Young Curmudgeon, 11/7/03.