IRAQ BIN LADIN

Times: Saddam link to al-Qaeda in doubt
BRITISH Intelligence officials have expressed doubt that Saddam Hussein established any working relationship with al-Qaeda despite the discovery of documents showing that an “envoy” for Osama bin Laden visited Baghdad in 1998.
The documents were found by The Sunday Telegraph at the bombed-out Baghdad headquarters of the Mukhabarat, Iraq’s Intelligence service, and were hailed yesterday as positive proof of an Iraqi link to al-Qaeda. They mentioned the arrival of a confidant of bin Laden who had travelled to Baghdad from Khartoum in March 1998. Bin Laden was based in Sudan until 1996.

Guardian: Al-Qaida links still dubious
Western intelligence officials are playing down the significance of
documents appearing to show that Saddam Hussein's regime met an
al-Qaida envoy in Baghdad in 1998 and sought to arrange a meeting with Osama bin
Laden. "We are aware of fleeting contacts [between Baghdad and
al-Qaida] in the past, but there were were no long-term official contacts," a
well-placed source told the Guardian yesterday. "The documents do not
take things further forward" British security and intelligence agencies have
persistently dismissed attempts by hawks in the White House to link
Saddam's regime with al-Qaida, a link which would help London and
Washington to argue that Iraq had posed an imminent threat. According
to the documents found by the Sunday Telegraph an envoy from al-Qaida went
to Baghdad from the Sudanese capital Khartoum in March 1998 - two years
after Sudan, under pressure from Saudia Arabia, ordered Bin Laden out and he
returned to Afghanistan.