again... if there were any factual basis for proving a Saddam connection with Al Qaeda, this administration and the RNC would be plastering it over every bulletin board and every TV channel on the dial. You have your MILNET stuff.... uncorroborated, unverified, single sourced, unreliable defector- provided snippets...a bunch of dots that you sincerely believe all connect. I do not doubt for a moment the sincerity of your beliefs. You should afford me the same treatment.
I have seen and read all that you have.... and, I have an additional layer of perspective that you do not have...I have lived in the region. I worked in a job where it was my responsibility to get to know the key players in every major faction in Lebanon. It was my job to gain their trust and to use that trust to negotiate cessation of hostilities between those factions and UN forces or IDF forces. That level of experience informs and affects my professional judgment of the situation. I firmly believe that secular baathist dictators have absolutely no reason to provide any substantive assistance to sulafist, wahabbist islamic extremists. They may very well have met and met often, but IMHO, Saddam sure as hell would not train them in tactics that they could use against him and he sure as hell would NEVER give them a weapon of mass destruction - even if he had any - that they could turn around and use against him.
