Update: New material from the owner of Your Planet is Doomed, cited here, is posted under "Dodgy dossier" a load of crap. Furthermore, I have changed the category to "5 years of war," where I have decided to keep all the Iraq war history posts.
That post a few days back on the "dodgy dossier" attracted a fascinating comment. It was from one Roy Robison who it turns out is author of THIS book: Both In One Trench: Saddam's Secret Terror Documents. According to the author, "secret terror documents" in fact do show Saddam did "support al Qaeda and the Taliban."
To be fair to Robison, and certainly I want to be fair to anyone who takes the time to place a reasonable comment [Update: That particular comment I now considered spam] in this blog, I have not read his material yet. But I have read two other authors claiming these connections: Laurie Mylroie and Stephen Hayes. So, at first, I replied rather sharply to the idea that the fabled 9/11 Commission was wrong when it published its famous conclusion: there existed no "operational relationship" between Saddam and al Qaeda.
My skepticism is reinforced by the voluminous hard evidence to the contrary expertly cataloged over the years by the incomparable Rodger Payne. The author most indictable on the "Saddam & al Qaeda" bandwagon has been Mylroie. Just peruse Rodger's posts and you'll see much of what Mylroie has written to be baseless.
Furthermore, the link Rodger provides does a pretty good job on Robison himself, to which he responds in comments, and to which there are counter-comments. So, I'll repeat, I like to be fair and not pass judgment on this fellow's rightist-friendly work before I read it. Just because wingnuttia likes to pick up these Saddam-as-al-Qaeda stories and run off half-cocked singing them like they're some kind of war canticle doesn't mean it's not worth studying the material. This is not saying that do I in any way buy what Robison says.
The link Rodger provided draws a general picture about Iraqi documents "captured" after the invasion that you won't see in wingnuttia:
07 April, 2006: The Saddam Documents - Caveat Emptor
The US Government continues to drip feed carefully selected documents and other material obtained in Iraq after the ousting of Saddam Hussein into the public domain. Republicans are pressing the government to fully open the tap, releasing all forms of exploitable media, including thousands of documents not yet translated, however the Bush administration is mindful to ensure that nothing diplomatically sensitive or politically embarrassing comes to light. ...It goes on to look one-by-one at documents that have come into the public eye, along with how particular trumpets have blown in media (both conservative and mainstream) to promote often outlandish conclusions derived from them. This is valuable analysis for any sane person faced with arguing in wingnuttia.
Just as moon hoax believers browse the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal in the hope of spotting an earthworm, so Saddam-9/11 conspiracy theorists read every poorly translated document, looking for one piece of killer information that will retrospectively bind the Baathists and the Bin Ladenists together, thereby vindicating President George Bush's decision to attack Iraq ? something many members of his administration had long been itching to do. And if the two keep coming unstuck then many tenuous connections will make do: selective quotation, serious omission, guilt by association, insinuation, outright distortion; anything to muddy the oil water; anything to expose the Iraqi-al-Qaeda terror alliance that was primed to blow up in Uncle Sam's face.
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