You missed a part, but I'll help:

American officials described the document as an internal report by the Iraqi intelligence service detailing efforts to seek cooperation with several Saudi opposition groups, including Mr. bin Laden's organization, before Al Qaeda had become a full-fledged terrorist organization. He was based in Sudan from 1992 to 1996, when that country forced him to leave and he took refuge in Afghanistan.

The document states that Iraq agreed to rebroadcast anti-Saudi propaganda, and that a request from Mr. bin Laden to begin joint operations against foreign forces in Saudi Arabia went unanswered. There is no further indication of collaboration.

For those who don't want to read the whole thing, the second page states that Osama was still opposed to Saddam's non-Muslim government, but probably thought it useful to try to use Saddam as part of a larger strategy against Saudi Arabia. Nothing much came of the "relationship", and we know that just last year bin Laden was still calling for the overthrow of Iraq's secular government.

In any case, it fails again. Sorry Bill, keep trying. Maybe you'll find evidence of Saddam piloting one of the September 11 planes hidden among his massive WMD cache.

Michael, you just don't get it. Bush's strategy was to remove Saddam BEFORE nascent links between Saddam and al Qaeda grew to the point that he could/would give them a WMD to detonate in America. It's that simple.

The FACT is, Saddam tried to forge a connection with al Qaeda. And would have again if we'd left him in power.

The FACT is Saddam developed and used WMD against civilians.

The FACT is it now appears that a member of Iraqi intel was involved in planning 9/11.

The FACT is a member of Saddam's intel service was involved in making the bomb that damaged the World Trade Center in the 1993 attack on the WTC BY AL QAEDA.

Now, I guess we could have waited until we had live video of Saddam and bin Laden standing in Times Square with a ticking nuke before we did anything, but that seems to me to be waiting just a tad too long.

I know there are some people who thought we should let Saddam alone and hope the nascent links between al Qaeda and his regime - which was becoming increasingly Islamist in tone as his economy crumbled - didn't grew more robust. Inn effect, that policy would bet the lives of thousands of Americans on choices made by two wackos named Saddam and bin Laden, two wackos who, by the way, hated America with equivalent fervor.

I disagree and think that policy would be insane. I'm in the camp that says, kill all the terrorists and all the Islamic wackos that we can as fast as we can, and spread democracy in the Islamic world as fast as we can for the vast majority of people there who probably would prefer not to live under Saddam's weird mix of Stalinism and fascism, nor under bin Laden's 13th century caliphate.

But, you know, that's just me.

I guess I can see the other side: Let's leave 24 million Iraqis living under a murderous dictator and hope for the best.

--For those who don't want to read the whole thing, the second page states that Osama was still opposed to Saddam's non-Muslim government,--

Yet when it served Saddam's purpose, a Koran in his own blood and the Mother of All Mosques....

It's also just a "duh" thing.

After we're gone, then they fight for the spoils.

Micheal is right...there was no justification for war because the links between Saddam and OBL had not matured. We should have waited until Saddam and AQ had a "full-fledged" organizational partnership and carried out something worse than 9/11. Once that happened, we could have held fact-finding commissions and Senate hearings for 2 years, pled our case 17 times to the UN, figured out how to blame George Bush for not removing Saddam following 9/11, and then spent the next two years figuring out how to get the Arab Street to like us, thus eliminating the need to fight back against savages hell-bent on our destruction.

Unfortunately, Bush did not wait for this to happen and led us into war. We Dems are not so much opposed to the WAR, just HOW Bush is fighting the war (well, we're opposed to the war in front of certain audiences). The war on terror, as I heard a DNC spokeswoman say this morning, is much BIGGER than Iraq, and we're bogged down there. I mean, if we weren't in Iraq, we could widen the war (since it's BIGGER than Iraq) to other countries like Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Sudan and Jordan. But wait a sec, Bush wants to widen the GWoT, so we can't want that, too, even if it's the right thing to do. I guess we could just keep hammering the President and talk out of both sides of our mouths?

Michael,

Your comment puts you dangerously close to tinfoil hat territory. It has the flavor of those who offer definitive proof that Area 51 houses aliens and that the Holocaust never really happened. The best part is where you cite bin Laden as a source. That sort of thing tends to undermine one's argument.

Didn't we have a chance to nip Osama in the bud in Afghanistan in the early 1990's?

...last year bin Laden was still calling for the overthrow of Iraq's secular government.

So...you take Osama bin Laden at his word, but are skeptical about something President Bush said?

That's just a little scary.

there was no justification for war because the links between Saddam and OBL had not matured

Full stop. This is insane. If we listened to logic like that, we would have to wait for NYC to turn into a smoking mushroom cloud before we responded. That is idiotic. "Sure, we know that Saddam and OBL want to kill us, and we know that they're talking to each other, and we know that Saddam has these weapons and OBL wants those weapons, but we can't do anything about it right now! Sorry, I hope that when your mother is vaporised and your father dies a horrible choking death from vomiting out his guts due to chemical exposure, you can understand!"

What a crock.