SADDAM, OSAMA & THE 9-11 REPORT

On the AOL news boards, I've read a few wingnut posts that claim we are in Iraq because Saddam was involved with 9-11. Of course, this flies in the face of what Bush, Rumsfeld and Powell have said:

1/31/03
Question: Do you believe that there is a link between Saddam Hussein, a direct link, and the men who attacked on September the 11th?
THE PRESIDENT: I can't make that claim.

MATTHEWS: You believe there's still a possibility that the Iraqi government had something to do with planning the attack on us, 9/11?
RUMSFELD: Not to my knowledge. HARDBALL, 4/29/04

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press," said he had "seen nothing that makes a direct connection between Saddam Hussein and that awful regime and what happened on 9/11." LINK

One of the wingnuts even claimed that the 9-11 Report found a connection. I have the PDF version of the report and here are all the relevant mentions of Saddam and Osama:

Moreover, Bin Ladin had in fact been sponsoring anti-Saddam Islamists in Iraqi Kurdistan, and sought to attract them into his Islamic army.[53] page 66

There is also evidence that around this time Bin Ladin sent out a number of feelers to the Iraqi regime, offering some cooperation. None are reported to have received a significant response. According to one report, Saddam Hussein’s efforts at this time to rebuild relations with the Saudis and other Middle Eastern regimes led him to stay clear of Bin Ladin.[74 ] page 66

Arguing that the case for links between Iraq and al Qaeda was weak, the memo pointed out that Bin Ladin resented the secularism of Saddam Hussein’s regime. Finally, the memo said, there was no confirmed reporting on Saddam cooperating with Bin Ladin on unconventional weapons.[62] page 334

Salman Pak is another wingnut meme that's still around. Supposedly, Al-Queda trained there with Saddam's permission. Once again, there is no evidence to back this up:

Doubts cast on efforts to link Saddam, al-Qaida
By Warren P. Strobel, Jonathan S. Landay and John Walcott
Posted on Tue, Mar. 02, 2004

- Iraqi defectors alleged that Saddam's regime was helping to train Iraqi and non-Iraqi Arab terrorists at a site called Salman Pak, south of Baghdad. The allegation made it into a September 2002 white paper that the White House issued.

The U.S. military has found no evidence of such a facility.