Hmm... No connection between Saddam and terrorism?

[Tenn_Vol_Authority]

7/7 Mastermind Is Seized In Iraq

The al-Qaeda leader who is thought to have devised the plan for the July 7 suicide bombings in London and an array of terrorist plots against Britain has been captured by the Americans.

Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, a former major in Saddam Hussein’s army, was apprehended as he tried to enter Iraq from Iran and was transferred this week to the “high-value detainee programme” at Guantanamo Bay.

 

[CSpindizzy]

Wasn't a mid-grade officer in the US Army just found to be giving information to the insurgents in Iraq last week? What does a major in the Iraqi Army under Saddam have to do with connecting Saddam and Al Qaeda? So just because a member of a unit aids some group, that's reason enough to tie the government to that group? That's about as stupid as saying since Aldrich Ames was aiding the Soviet Union so the US government was as well.

 

[TennTradition]

Wasn't a mid-grade officer in the US Army just found to be giving information to the insurgents in Iraq last week? What does a major in the Iraqi Army under Saddam have to do with connecting Saddam and Al Qaeda? So just because a member of a unit aids some group, that's reason enough to tie the government to that group? That's about as stupid as saying since Aldrich Ames was aiding the Soviet Union so the US government was as well.

The 7/7 bombings were about a year and a half ago. This guy had long lost contact with the Hussein by then...I'm guessing that he was picked up by Al Qauda in Iraq (following the war) and became an operational planner - POST war.

If there was a link between Hussein and Al Qaeda....a strong link...we would have found it - we were looking too hard to have not found it (or at least a few shreds of evidence that we could then make up the rest and establish a connection).

 

[CSpindizzy]

Saddam and any other secular nationalist are afraid of Al Qaeda. Guys like Saddam want themselves to be the focal point of the state. His image was pasted on every building and portraits on every wall just like Hitler. People like Saddam with their inflated egos know that Al Qaeda is a threat to their own visions. If there was any cooperation, it was quite distant and something that would not jeopardize Saddam's hold on Iraq.